UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


THE  NEW  IDEALISM 


By 
MAY  SINCLAIE 


The  Belfrt 

Mart  Olivier 

The  Romantic 

The  Three  Sisters 

The  Tree  of  Heaven 

A  Defence  of  Idealism 

Mr.  Waddington  op  Wtck 

The  Return  of  the  Prodigal 

Journal  of  Impressions  in  Belgium 

Life   and   Death  of  Harriet  Frean 


THE  NEW  IDEALISM 


BY 

MAY  SINCLAIR 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1922 


All  rights  reserved 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


CoPTKiaHT,  1922, 
Bt  may  SINCLAIR. 


Set  up  and  printed.        Published  April,    1922. 


\  This  Book 

t^  IS  Dedicated  to 

\c^  WILLIAM  PEPPEEELL  MONTAGITE 

WHO   WILL    NOT   AGEEE 
WITH    A    WOED    OF    IT 


INTRODUCTION 

The  aim  of  this  book  is  twofold:  to  examine  the 
foundations  of  realism  more  critically,  and  to  outline 
a  reconstruction  of  idealism  more  closely  than  was 
possible  five  years  ago.  The  latest  developments  of 
philosophy  demand  a  revision  of  the  whole  problem, 
from  a  shifted  standpoint.  Since  1917  realism  has 
gained  in  solidity  and  a  certain  intricate  precision. 
The  Critical  Eealists  ^  have  discovered  a  flaw  in  its 
theory  of  perception  and  tried  to  mend  it  (not,  I  think, 
with  conspicuous  success) ;  Professor  Whitehead  ^  has 
laid  down  its  first  principles  once  for  all;  and  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  ^  has  built  it  up  into  a  system  among 
systems. 

Realism  is  ten  times  more  formidable  than  it  was 
in  1917. 

And  since  1917  the  issue  has  been  narrowed  down 
to  the  field  of  Space  and  Time,  and  it  is  there  that  the 
battle  between  realism  and  idealism  must  be  fought. 

That  issue  is  very  clear.  For,  however  realists  may 
differ  among  themselves,  whether  they  say  with  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  that  Space-Time  is  the  ultimate 
reality,  or  with  Professor  Whitehead  that  the  ultimate 
entities  are  events,  they  are  all  agreed  that  mind  is 
not  the  ultimate  entity  and  must  be  kept  out  of  the 
problem.  '^ Nature,"  Professor  Whitehead  says,  '*is 
closed  to  mind."    Mind,  on  any  realist  scheme,  is  only 

^Essays  m  Critical  Bealisin:  1920. 

''Enquiry    Concerrdnff   the   Principles   of   Natural    Knowledge:    1919. 
The  Concept  of  Nature:   1920. 
'Space,  Time  and  Deity:  1920. 


viii  INTEODUCTION 

one  more  entity,  one  more  change  in  a  sequence  of 
changes;  the  last  thing,  not  the  first,  though  highest, 
if  you  like,  in  the  scale  of  values. 

The  problem  of  the  realist,  then,  is  how  to  account 
for  mind  as  part  of  a  system  in  which  mind  was  not 
present  from  the  beginning.  I  have  tried  to  show  that 
this  attempt  to  get  mind  out  of  the  mindless  lands  us 
in  endless  difficulties  and  contradictions,  contradic- 
tions which  are  only  removed  from  one  level  of  the 
enquiry  to  crop  up  again  on  the  next ;  that  it  is  easier 
to  obtain  an  uncontradictious  space-time  continuum 
from  ultimate  consciousness  than  to  produce  conscious- 
ness from  an  ultimate  space-time. 

Take  this  affair  of  the  continuum.  Professor  White- 
head tells  us  that  it  is  secured  by  the  covering  which 
one  event  gives  to  another  and  to  its  own  '' event- 
particles."  You  can  divide  an  event  into  an  infinite 
number  of  event-particles,  but  the  whole  event  extends 
over  them  in  unbroken  duration.  This  is  true.  It  is 
also  true  that  if  once  you  start  splitting  up  events  into 
event-particles  you  are  saddled  with  all  the  inconven- 
iences of  discontinuity.  The  event  as  a  whole,  as  a 
covering  continuum,  exists  only  for  consciousness 
which  holds  together  all  the  moments  of  its  duration. 
For  the  idealist,  consciousness  is  the  covering  event. 

I  have  tried  to  show  both  that  consciousness  is  ulti- 
mate and  that  there  is  consciousness  and  conscious- 
ness, and  that  the  realist  attack  bears  hard,  not  on 
primary  consciousness  which  perceives,  feels,  wills, 
remembers,  conceives  and  imagines,  but  on  conscious- 
ness which  returns  on  itself,  on  that  secondary,  super- 
vening consciousness  which  reflects,  judges,  infers  and 
reasons.  Professor  Whitehead  is  right  when  he  says 
that  it  is  no  explanation  of  anything  to  say  that '  *  there 
is  a  mind  knowing  it, "  if  he  means  that  things  are  not 


INTRODUCTION  ix 

made  or  modified  by  tlie  play  of  mind  on  them.  But 
this  play  is  the  act,  not  of  primary  but  of  secondary 
consciousness. 

I  have  not  seized  on  this  distinction  because  it  is  an 
easy  way  out  of  the  diflBculty,  but  because  it  seems  to 
me  to  be  a  simple  fact  of  experience.  I  should  be 
ashamed  of  treating  so  plain  a  platitude  as  if  it  were 
a  discovery  were  it  not  that  it  is  continually  over- 
looked. The  main  assumption  of  realism — that  in 
knowing  we  know  that  things  exist  in  themselves  apart 
from  any  knowing — rests  on  the  confusion. 

I  have  tried  to  show  that  this  assumption  is  not 
justified;  that  primary  consciousness  knows  nothing 
about  things  outside  and  apart  from  itself  and  makes 
no  affirmation  of  their  independent  existence ;  that  this 
again  is  the  work  of  secondary  consciousness,  and  that 
we  have  only  to  examine  our  primary  consciousness 
in  its  innocence  and  purity  to  see  that  it  is  so.  The 
affirmations  of  secondary  consciousness  (which  are 
what  realism  goes  on)  come  too  late.  It  does  indeed 
report  a  distinction  between  itself  and  what  it  knows ; 
but  what  it  knows  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  that 
primary  block  of  consciousness  in  which  there  is  no 
distinction  between  knowing  and  things  known. 

I  am  not  going  to  apologise  too  much  for  this  book ; 
for  it  is  not  a  defence  of  my  ''Defence  of  Idealism." 
On  the  contrary,  it  is  an  attempt,  successful  or  unsuc- 
cessful, to  remedy  the  many  shortcomings  of  that  light- 
hearted  essay. 

The  worst  of  these  were  its  failure  to  realise  the 
supreme  importance  of  Space-Time  in  the  problem 
of  consciousness,  and  the  bearing  of  Values  on  the 
moral  problem. 

I  am  still  in  the  curious  position  of  admiring  beyond 
everything  the  work  of  the  realists  with  whose  con- 


X  INTRODUCTION 

elusions  I  am  not  able  to  agree.  I  have  no  longer  any 
prejudice  against  realism,  and  would  even  be  glad  if 
somebody  would  convert  me  to  it,  so  that  I  might  enjoy 
the  advantages  of  the  position ;  for  example,  its  freedom 
I  from  metaphysical  care.  About  all  the  arguments  for 
'  idealism  there  is  an  air  of  melancholy  compulsion, 
\  while  for  sheer  intellectual  delight,  give  me  realism. 
It  has  turns  of  surpassing  fascination  and  surprise. 
Such  is  Professor  Laird's  idea  that  when  you  remem- 
ber Mont  Blanc  you  are  really  and  truly  back  in  the 
past,  beholding  the  mountain.  Such  Professor  White- 
head's theory  of  Time,  and  Professor  Alexander's  cor- 
relations of  Space-Time  and  his  vision  of  Deity.  These 
things  come  on  you  like  the  first  burst,  long  ago,  of 
Plato  and  Spinoza,  of  Kant  and  Hegel,  on  your  excited 
youth.  I  know  no  other  philosophy  that  provides  a 
comparable  thrill. 

As  it  was  not  possible,  while  still  struggling  with 
my  opponents,  to  convey  any  sense  of  my  profound  in- 
debtedness, I  record  it  here,  lest  in  the  agitation  of 
controversy  I  should  seem  to  have  forgotten  what  it 
would  ill  become  me  to  forget. 

If  I  betray  ignorance  of  many  contemporary  idealists, 
it  is  because  for  years  I  was  satisfied  with  Kant  and 
Hegel  relieved  by  Schopenhauer  and  Mr.  Bradley,  and 
because,  lately,  my  chief  interest  has  been  in  seeing 
what  can  be  said  against  idealism.  It  is  the  realists 
who  have  made  me  look  to  its  defences  and  who  have 
most  helped  to  show  me  the  possible  lines  of  reconstruc- 
tion. I  could  have  done  nothing  without  Professor 
Alexander's  work  on  Space-Time.  Much  as  idealism 
owes  to  idealists,  its  larger  debt  must  be  to  the  first 
realist  who  taught  them  to  ''take  Space  and  Time 
seriously. ' '  So,  after  years  of  devotion  to  Mr.  Brad- 
ley's Absolute,  I  wanted  to  see  what  would  happen  if 


INTRODUCTION  xi 

I  simply  followed  the  trail  which,  thanks  to  Professor 
Alexander,  I  saw  before  me.  If  it  happens  to  have 
struck  across  somebody  else's  trail,  so  that  I  seem  to 
have  borrowed  without  acknowledgment,  I  apologise. 

The  part  of  the  present  essay  I  feel  most  nervous 
about  is  that  in  the  second  section  of  Chapter  III, 
where  I  have  ventured  to  criticise  Professor  White- 
head's work.  The  idealist  who  has  no  expert  math- 
ematical knowledge  must  always  be  haunted  by  a 
ghastly  fear.  For  all  he  knows,  the  mathematician 
may  come  out  any  moment  and  slay  him  with  a  set  of 
equations,  and  he  will  not  even  have  the  benefit  of 
knowing  how  dead  he  is. 

Again,  I  am  afraid  that  in  my  chapter  on  The 
Antinomies  of  Space  and  Time,  I  have  done  less  than 
justice  to  Professor  Boodin  who  has  written  three  bril- 
liant philosophic  works:  Time  and  Reality;  Truth  and 
Reality  and  A  Realistic  Universe;  besides  his  essay  on 
Cosmic  Evolution.^  He  has  succeeded  in  making  even 
Pragmatism  fascinating.  But  it  seemed  a  pity  that  so 
fine  a  thinker  should  have  taken  up  with  such  a  lament- 
able view  of  space  and  time.  The  more  so,  as  his 
pragmatic  realist  intentions  have  not  blinded  him  to 
certain  aspects  of  the  case  that  make  for  idealism,  and 
he  has  shown  very  clearly  that  he  sees  where  the  root 
of  the  matter  lies.    Thus  in  Time  and  Reality: 

"We  can  never  prove  .  .  .  that  what  appears  as  continuous 
is  not  objectively  discrete.  Thus  the  surface  of  the  water  and  the 
pictures  of  the  vitoscope  appear  as  continuous,  though  objectively 
we  know  that  they  are  discrete.  The  continuity  here  is  in  the  per- 
ceiving subject,  not  in  the  perceived  object.  .  .  .  The  only  way  then 
to  be  sure  we  have  a  continuum  is  intellectually  to  construct  one.  If 
you  ask,  then,  how  we  know  that  there  is  such  a  continuum,  whether 
it  is  not  merely  an  ideal  construction,  we  answer  that  this  is  irrele- 
vant to  our  purpose;  but  if  there  is  objective  continuity  at  all  it 
must  be  thus  constructed." 

*  Published  in  The  Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian  Society:  Vol.  XXI. 


xii  INTRODUCTION 

The  unmstructed  student  should  be  warned  that 
realism  is  more  formidable  than  it  can  be  made  to 
look.  Also  that  when  the  critics  of  Professor  White- 
head and  Professor  Alexander  have  done  their  worst, 
Space,  Time  a/nd  Deity,  the  Enquiry  Concerning  the 
Principles  of  Natural  Knowledge  and  The  Concept  of 
Nature  are  likely  to  stand  with  the  greatest  philosophic 
works  of  the  twentieth  century. 

I  do  not  imagine  for  one  moment  that  my  own 
idealism  is  watertight,  or  that  no  doubt  will  ever  trou- 
ble me  as  to  the  truth  of  its  assumptions.  All  meta- 
physics are  highly  problematic,  and  the  idealist  is  not 
more  bound  than  other  people  to  furnish  a  watertight 
system.  Enough  if  his  theory  does  not  leak  too  much ; 
he  cannot  prove  anything  any  more  than  other  people. 
His  assumptions  need  not  even  be  a  better  description, 
provided  they  give  a  more  adequate  and  consistent  ex- 
planation of  the  facts. 

But  they  must  be  adequate,  they  must  be  consistent, 
and  they  must  explain. 

I  can  hardly  hope  that  mine  fulfil  these  requirements 
at  all  points.  It  must  be  admitted  that  idealists  before 
now  have  spoiled  their  case  by  injudicious  statements. 
I  have  tried  to  avoid  injudicious  statements,  but  it  is 
more  than  likely  that  I  have  not  been  so  successful  as 
I  think.  The  worst,  or  the  best,  that  can  happen  to  me 
is  to  be  found  out.  I  shall  not  care  if  some  idealist 
comes  along  and  says,  ''This  isn't  new  idealism.  So 
and  So  has  said  it  already  ten  times  over;"  for  then 
I  shall  have  So  and  So's  support.  Or  if  another  ideal- 
ist says, ' '  This  will  never  do.  This  isn't  the  way  to  re- 
construct idealism.  I  can  show  you  a  much  better  one," 
I  shall  not  care,  provided  he  does  show  me. 

And  I  hope  I  shall  not  mind  very  much  if  a  realist 
comes  and  smashes  the  whole  thing  to  smithereens, 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

provided  he  convinces  me  of  some  truth  I  have  not 
seen.  I  can  only  say, ' '  This  is  the  truth  about  idealism 
as  I  see  it  now." 

I  submit  myself  to  the  judgment  of  those  who  know 
how  hard  it  is,  in  this  adventure,  to  escape  disaster. 

May  Sinclair. 
London,  July  29th,  1921. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii-xiii 

BOOK  ONE :     THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS 

CHAPTER 

I    The  Old  Idealism 1 

i  The  Position 1 

ii  Epistemology 3 

iii  Future  of  Idealism 13 

II    The  New  Realism 15 

i  The  Realist  Position 15 

ii  The  Realist  Theory  of  Memory 22 

iii  The  Realist  Theory  of  Relation  and  Knowledge     .  29 

iv  The  Strength  of  Realism 36 

V  Objections 37 

III  Some  Realist  Theories  of  Perception 39 

i  Professor  Broad  and  the  Real  Counterpart  ...  39 

ii  Professor  Whitehead  and  the  Concept  of  Nature  .  81 

iii  The  Critical  Realists 114 

IV  Antinomies  of  Space  and  Time 139 

i  The  Antinomies 139 

ii  Some  Modern  Solutions 142 

iii  The  Compact  Series  Considered 158 

"V    "Space,  Time  and  Deity" 162 

i  Space-Time 162 

ii  The  Categories 179 

iii  Quality 191 

iv  Consciousness 195 

V  Deity 209 


BOOK  TWO :    RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM  217 

VI    Space,  Time  and  Consciousness    .......  219 

i  The  Problem 219 

ii  Consciousness  and  Space-Time      ......  224 

iii  Consciousness  and  the  Categories 232 

iv  Relativity 243 

XV 


xvi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Vn    Space,  Time  and  Other  Consciousnesses    ....  246 

i  Forms  of  Consciousness 246 

ii  Reversible  Time  Series 247 

iii  The  Fourth  Dimension 249 

iv  Dream  Space-Time 251 

V  Personal  Perspectives 252 

"VTII    Difficulties  and  Objections 260 

i  The   Challenge 260 

ii  The  Crux 261 

iii  Being  and  Being-known 267 

IX    Primary  Consciousness 274 

i  The  Distinction 274 

ii  The  Naif  Confusion 283 

iii  The  Unpereeived  Reality  and  the  Crucial  Relation  .  284 

X    Secondary  Consciousness 290 

i  The  Work  of  Mind 290 

ii  Relation  of  Primary  and  Secondary  Consciousness  291 

iii  Realism  and  Idealism 293 

XI    Ultimate  Consciousness 295 

i  Necessity  of  Ultimate  Consciousness 295 

ii  Problems  of  God's  Knowing 299 

iii  The  Moral  Problem 303 

iv  Free- Will 305 

V  Relation  of  Finite  and  Ultimate  Consciousness     .  307 

XII    Summary 311 

i  The  Unsolved  Problems 311 

ii  Primary  and  Secondary  Consciousness  ....  313 

iii  God 314 

Appendix 315-319 


BOOK  ONE 
THE  CRITICAL  PREPAEATIONS 


THE  NEW   IDEALISM 

I 

THE  OLD  IDEALISM 


What  is  the  exact  position  of  Idealism  at  the  present 
day?  What  is  likely  to  be  its  position  in  the  future?  The 
How  is  it  going  to  emerge,  if  it  emerges  at  all,  from  its  ^«^*^°» 
encounter  with  the  New  Realism  1  There  is  no  denying 
that  the  New  Realism  has  made  a  prodigious  disturb- 
ance in  philosophic  thought,  a  disturbance  so  vital  and 
far-reaching  that  philosophic  thought  will  never  look 
the  same  again. 

The  idealist  is  fatuously  sanguine  if  he  expects  his 
own  pet  system  to  come  up  out  of  the  turmoil  looking 
just  the  same.  Never  before  has  there  been  such  a 
ruthless  exposure  of  the  weak  points  in  his  position. 
At  the  present  moment  it  seems  fairly  safe  to  say  that 
the  Old  Idealism,  I  mean  the  Idealism  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries,  of  Berkeley,  of  Kant  and 
Hegel,  of  the  new-Kantians  and  new-Hegelians,  aU  the 
old  logic  and  epistemology  (horrible  word)  will  have 
to  go  and  give  place  to  an  idealism  which  will  take 
serious  account  of  the  world  of  space  and  time. 

The  Old  Idealism  owes  its  present  rather  dubious 
position  not  only  to  its  more  recent  excesses,  but  to 
the  shadiness  of  its  transactions  in  the  past.  Consider 
its  origins.     It  started  with  the  crime  of  question- 

1 


2  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

begging.  Descartes 's  '^I  think,  therefore' I  am"  was 
really  a  very  glaring  instance.  Since  then  Idealism 
has  never  ceased  to  mix  up  the  ratio  essendi  with  the 
ratio  cognoscendi  and  to  glory  in  the  confusion. 

Still  one  aspect  of  Idealism  should  not  be  lost  sight 
of.  Hitherto  it  has  always  been  a  reaction  against 
some  foregoing  dogmatism.  It  started  critical.  Even 
with  Descartes  it  started  critical.  It  may  even  be  said 
that  the  most  valuable  part  of  the  Cartesian  philosophy 
is  its  criticism,  its  scepticism,  its  method. 

And  modem  idealism,  properly  speaking,  starts  with 
Kant,  following  Hume.  Even  realists  will  admit  that, 
as  Hume's  philosophy,  like  Berkeley's,  was  a  justifi- 
able reaction  against  the  dualistic  realism  of  Locke, 
Kant's  philosophy  was  a  justifiable  reaction  against 
the  dogmatic  realism  of  Wolf.  Every  great  philosophic 
system  is  a  reaction  or  a  development  from  its  prede- 
cessor ;  in  either  case  it  must  be  critical,  since  develop- 
ment also  involves  selection  and  rejection.  Idealism, 
then,  is  primarily  a  criticism.  Whatever  construction 
or  reconstruction  it  may  end  with,  it  begins  empirically 
with  an  examination  of  experience.  In  Kant's  hands 
it  became  a  system  that  any  realist  can  in  his  heart 
respect,  even  when  he  has  danced  on  Kant's  Anti- 
nomies and  his  Unity  of  Apperception,  and  his  Trans- 
cendental Ego. 

We  know  that  the  Critical  Philosophy  ended  in  a 
formidable  scepticism,  a  drastic  doubt  of  appearances, 
a  thoroughgoing  system  of  relativity.  Even  the 
schemata  of  space  and  time,  even  the  categories,  con- 
stitutive of  experience  though  they  may  be,  apply  only 
to  appearances,  not  to  things-in-themselves.  By  a 
beautiful  irony  of  logic,  Kantian  idealism  ends  in  dual- 
ism, too.  There  is  a  gulf  fixed  between  thought  and 
the  Thing-in-Itself.  Kant's  schemata  fall  apart  from 
his  categories.   The  august  categories,  after  all,  are  not 


I  THE  CEITICAL  PEEPARATIONS  3 

constitutive' of  reality,  they  are  barely  constitutive  of 
phenomenal  appearance,  though  they  receive  its  taint. 
They  are  ready-made  intellectual  forms,  salvage  from 
an  exploded  logic,  clapped  on  to  the  given  stuif  or  con- 
tent of  sensation,  frames  into  which  sense-data,  like 
so  many  window  panes,  somehow  amazingly  contrive 
to  fit.  Constitutive  or  not,  thought  partakes  of  the 
phenomenal,  the  ultimately  unreal  character  of  its  sen- 
suous content.  Knowledge  is  cheated  of  Being,  if  the 
Thing-in-Itself  remains  unknown  and  unknowable. 

At  the  same  time  this  dualism  between  appearances 
and  reality  was  simpler  than  the  dualism  of  Descartes 
and  Spinoza,  simpler  than  any  preceding  realism.  And 
the  next  step  in  simplification  was  obvious.  Hegel 
took  it.  He  knocked  the  bottom  out  of  dualism  with 
one  immense  simplifying  phrase:  "Thought  is  the 
Thing-in-Itself";  why  go  out  of  your  way  to  assume 
any  other?  The  Ding-an-sich  does  not  skulk  and  dodge 
unknown  behind  phenomena ;  it  is  part,  the  most  essen- 
tial and  permanent  part,  of  the  entire  show.  An  ulti- 
mate, unknown,  skulking  and  dodging  Ding-an-sich  is 
an  unwarrantable  and  superfluous  duphcation  of  the 
real ;  he  called  it  a  dead-head.  Wherever  you  pick  him 
up  he  is  concerned  with  the  process  of  self -determin- 
ing, self-realising  thought ;  with  the  posing  and  oppos- 
ing and  reconciling  of  its  differences;  with  the  world 
of  Becoming,  of  passing  away  and  with  the  passing 
away  of  the  passing.  And  the  Thing-in-Itself  emerges 
again  and  again  in  higher  and  higher  forms,  as  it 
swings  itself  upwards,  eternal  and  selfsame  through 
all  the  intricate  movements  of  the  Triple  Dialectic. 
Nothing  could  be  more  complicated,  yet  nothing  could 
be  simpler.  It  seems  almost  childishly  simple  when 
you  catch  the  trick  of  it.  The  world  is  neither  more 
nor  less  than  a  system  of  thought-relations.  A  trans- 
parent system.    The  net  in  which  Hegel  snares  the  un- 


4  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

wary  world  is  "a  net  of  diamond."  Sense  itself,  the 
crux  of  Hegelianism,  what  is  it  but  one  of  two  terms 
in  a  *' thought  relation"?  This  cosmos  of  perceived 
relations  is  through  and  through  "objective"  for  us, 
for  finite  and  relative  consciousness;  but  the  subject- 
object  relation  itself  falls  into  the  net  of  Absolute 
thought.  Its  being  is  to  be  known.  Pure  unqualified 
Being  is  the  thinnest  and  poorest  of  the  categories,  but 
Absolute  Knowledge  is  Being  in  its  totality. 

It  doesn't  greatly  matter  whether  this  is  or  is  not  a 
true  accoimt  of  Absolute  Idealism.  It  is  the  account 
that  passes  for  it  with  most  of  Hegel's  followers  and 
all  of  his  opponents.  I  do  not  think  it  distorts  Hegel 
more  than  he  distorted  himself  in  his  Logic.  Anyhow 
it  is  what  we  mean  when  we  talk  about  Absolute  Ideal- 
ism ;  and  it  has  secured  a  firm  and  independent  footing 
under  that  name.  That  the  grand  totality  of  thought 
is  itself  only  a  moment  in  the  process  of  Absolute 
Spirit;  that  spirit  should  be  regarded  as  a  neutral 
' '  Third, ' '  the  underlying,  unifying  reality  of  ' '  matter ' ' 
and  "consciousness";  that  in  Hegel's  system,  properly 
understood,  the  logical  aspect  is  ultimately  trans- 
cended; all  this  may  be  urged  with  equal  passion  and 
reason  by  the  devotees  of  Hegel;  in  spite  of  them,  in 
spite  of  his  own  reiterated  protests,  his  Logic  stands 
as  the  most  thoroughpaced  system  of  epistemology 
(that  horrible  word  again!)  ever  known.  Thought  is 
the  Thing-in-Itself ;  it  is  ultimate  Reality;  it  is  the 
Whole;  so  comprehensive  is  it  that  it  renders  Spirit 
or  any  other  metaphysical  entity  superfluous.  We  are 
forced  to  the  preposterous  conclusion  not  only  that  all 
Knowing  is  being,  but  that  all  being  is  knowing,  which 
appears,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  improbable. 

Observe  that  in  each  system  of  Idealism  some  funda- 
mental element  of  reality  escapes  the  net.  Thus  Berke- 
ley takes  little  account  of  thought,  Hegel  is  not  serious 


mology 


I  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  5 

with  sense;  Kant  fails  to  correlate  them:  all  three 
neglect  the  metaphysical  and  creative  will. 

ii 

Now  if  it  fails  to  establish  an  Absolute  Consciousness 
carrying  and  covering  the  totality  of  things,  Idealism  5?S^ 
is  done  for.  Its  reductio  ad  absurdum  is  Solipsism. 
Of  the  world  before  consciousness  we  shall  be  obliged 
to  say  either  that  it  never  existed,  or  that  it  only  exists 
now,  from  moment  to  moment,  in  consciousness  that 
provides  it  with  a  past  time  and  a  behaviour  deducible 
(in  consciousness)  from  its  behaviour  here  and  now. 
We  shall  have  to  say  of  the  solar  system,  of  the  ple- 
siosaurus  flopping  on  his  mesozoic  beach,  of  the  club 
mosses  and  tree  ferns  of  the  carboniferous  age  that 
they  have  only  this  problematical  existence.  They 
never  really  were ;  they  are  constructions  in  conscious- 
ness of  what  they  would  have  been  had  there  been  any 
consciousness  to  perceive  them.  When  I  go  out  of  the 
room,  the  room  and  everything  in  it  ceases  to  exist; 
I  give  birth  to  the  hall  and  stair  passages  instead  as  I 
go  along  them.  I  may  carry  all  space  and  all  time 
about  with  me,  but  within  them  the  vast  cosmos  lives 
and  dies  according  to  whether  I  am  conscious  of  it  or 
not.    When  I  am  unconscious  space  and  time  also  die. 

To  return  to  sanity,  the  vital  problem  for  the  episte- 
mological  idealist  is  the  problem  of  the  synthetic  judg- 
ment; the  judgment  by  which  we  enlarge  our  experi- 
ence. At  first  sight  it  looks  as  if  such  judgments  could 
only  be  empirical,  as  if  it  were  truer  to  speak  of  experi- 
ences by  which  we  enlarge  our  judgment;  as  if  there 
could  be  no  such  thing  as  synthetic  judgments  a  priori. 

All  judgments  concerned  with  a  priori  material,  all 
judgments  of  pure  space-time,  all  judgments  of  pure 
mathematics,  even  the  simplest,  so  long  as  they  ad- 
vance from  a  lower  to  a  higher  power — from  the  point 


6  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

to  the  line,  from  the  line  to  the  plane,  from  the  plane 
to  the  solid — are  synthetic  and  are  a  priori  in  the  sense 
that  they  are  true  independently  of  actual  concrete 
experience. 

But  mark  what  follows.  According  to  the  Old  Ideal- 
ism the  mind  is  the  origin  and  home  of  all  the  a  priori 
stuff  there  is.  You  would  therefore  suppose  that  in 
any  judgment  a  priori  the  mind  is  not  travelling  along 
the  field  of  experience  and  arriving  at  fresh  know- 
ledge ;  it  is  merely  unloading  the  thought-stuff  which, 
previous  to  all  experience,  it  carries  about  with  itself 
as  a  matter  of  course.  Consequently  no  a  priori  judg- 
ment can  be  synthetic  in  the  sense  of  giving  it  some- 
thing that  it  hasn  't  got.  It  is  in  the  field  of  space  and 
time  that  the  self  adds  to  its  knowledge  and  that  syn- 
thetic judgments  become  possible. 

If  Kant  is  right  and  space  and  time  are  forms  of 
sensible  experience  alone,  not  only  will  pure  mathe- 
matical knowledge  be  independent  of  space  and  time, 
but  there  will  be  no  such  thing  as  synthetic  mathe- 
matical knowledge  a  priori.  No  advance,  no  discovery 
in  the  higher  mathematics.  When  Bolyai  found  that 
two  parallel  lines  can  be  drawn  through  one  point,  con- 
trary to  Euclid's  axiom  (contrary,  you  may  say,  to  all 
previous  experience  of  parallel  lines),  you  would  have 
thought  that  if  ever  there  was  a  synthetic  judgment 
it  was  that.  The  whole  business  is  purely  synthetic, 
neither  contained  in  the  notion  of  parallel  lines  nor 
provided  for  by  their  definition;  and  it  is  purely  a 
priori,  since  no  possible  concrete  experience  would  give 
you  the  behaviour  of  Bolyai 's  parallel  lines. 

And  so  far  from  denying  all  this  Kant  declares,  very 
emphatically  and  in  leaded  type,  that  all  mathematical 
judgments  (even  some  apparently  analytic  ones)  are 
synthetic.  And  yet,  if  he  is  right  and  the  mind  sup- 
plies the  a  priori  elements  of  the  cosmos,  he  has  no 


I  THE  CEITICAL  PREPARATIONS  7 

business  to  talk  about  a  priori  synthesis  at  all.  Bolyai 
will  not  have  discovered  new  properties  of  parallel 
lines.  The  pure  mathematician  cannot  discover  new 
properties  of  anything;  he  does  nothing  but  cart  old 
properties  about  with  him  in  his  a  priori  portmanteau 
and  take  them  out  and  look  at  them  as  he  goes  along. 

The  Old  Idealism  is  in  a  dilemma.  If  Kant  is  right 
and  space  and  time  are  schemata  of  sensible  perception 
only,  they  may  provide  for  the  synthesis,  but  they  do 
away  with  all  the  a  prioriness.  If  Hegel  is  right  and 
they  are  forms  of  a  priori  thinking,  where  is  the  syn- 
thesis? On  either  theory  it  is  clear  that  you  can't  have 
both. 

This  affair  of  the  synthetic  judgment  is  crucial  for 
Idealism.  The  epistemological  idealist  has  got  to  ac- 
count for  the  unearned  increment  of  mathematical 
knowledge,  for  the  mathematician's  advance  from  the 
known  a  priori  to  the  previously  unknown,  when  on  his 
hypothesis  the  a  priori  unknown  is  a  contradiction  in 
terms. 

But  an  a  priori  truth  becomes  an  empirical  truth  as 
soon  as  it  is  known,  that  is  to  say,  is  taken  up  into  the 
general  body  of  experience.  On  the  other  hand  no  pos- 
sible manipulation  will  convert  an  empirical  truth  into 
an  a  priori  one.  So  that,  properly  speaking,  there  are 
no  immediate  empirical  truths,  only  empirical  facts, 
from  which  truths  are  derived  by  a  process  of  general- 
isation. It  is  a  fact  that  I  see  a  brickbat  fall  to  the 
ground,  but  it  is  not  a  truth,  though  my  judgment  may 
be  true  or  false  according  as  it  agrees  or  not  with  the 
fact.  It  is  a  truth  that ' '  action  and  reaction  are  equal 
and  opposite,"  but  it  is  also  an  empirical  fact. 

It  is  obvious  that  though  Newton  arrived  at  his  third 
law  of  motion  by  a  process  of  thought,  it  is  not  a  law 
of  thought  that  he  arrived  at  but  a  law  of  motion. 

So  when  the  idealist  (I  mean  the  epistemological 


8  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

idealist)    says    that   the   universe    is    ''the   work    of 
thought, ' '  what  does  he  precisely  mean  ? 

Presumably  he  does  not  mean  that  it  is  the  work  of 
an  ingenious  Creator  manufacturing  a  cosmos  after  a 
pattern  of  ideas  in  his  head.  He  means  that  thought 
is  more  intimately  connected,  more  deeply  interfused 
with  the  universe  than  that.  He  means  that  thought 
is  the  stuff  of  it,  and  that  so  far  it  is  downright  con- 
crete and  objective.  He  does  not  mean  merely  that  the 
universe  is  of  such  a  sort  that  it  may  be  understood, 
that  by  taking  thought  we  can  find  out  all  about  it.  He 
means  nothing  more  nor  less  than  that  thought  builds 
up  a  sohd  barracks  of  a  cosmos  with  the  bricks  of  sense- 
data  and  the  mortar  of  the  categories.  If  he  is  a  post- 
Kantian  idealist  he  will  of  course  reduce  space  and 
time  to  thought  relations  and  settle  them  down  com- 
fortably among  the  categories,  too.  And  he  will  tell 
you  all  about  the  categories,  but  of  the  sense-data  he 
will  not  be  able  to  give  any  coherent  account  at  all. 
Even  the  nature  of  the  correlation  will  be  left  obscure. 
Enough  that  somehow  or  other  we  can  and  do  apply 
(changing  the  metaphor)  the  neatly  cut  pattern  of  our 
thoughts  to  the  unreasonable  and  shapeless  stuff  of 
sense. 

And  all  the  time  there  is  no  state  of  consciousness, 
no  real  process  of  thinking,  that  in  the  least  resembles 
this  process — except  that  after-thought  which  recog- 
nises the  presence  of  the  categories  in  any  given  sec- 
tion of  experience.  True  that,  cut  it  where  you  will, 
experience  will  yield  to  thought  at  least  the  categories 
of  space  and  time,  of  relativity,  of  quality  or  quantity 
or  both.  And  equally,  the  data  of  sense  will  play,  so 
to  speak,  into  their  hands;  they  will  not  on  the  first 
casual  encounter  show  themselves  hard  and  recalci- 
trant to  thought.    That  is  a  later  development.    Up 


I  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  9 

to  a  certain  point  they  will  submit  placably  to  thought- 
relations. 

So  far  so  good.  But  the  epistemological  idealist 
takes  little  or  no  account  of  cosmic  processes  which  are 
in  no  sense  processes  of  thought.  He  can  make  nothing 
of  cosmic  relations,  the  terms  of  which  are  not  terms 
of  thought  but  such  things  as  matter  and  motion, 
energies,  inertias,  velocities;  chemical  actions  and  re- 
actions ;  life,  growth  and  reproduction.  The  sequences 
in  which  he  builds  up  his  universe  are  ludicrously  un- 
like the  sequences  in  which  the  universe  would  appear 
to  have  built  itself  up  before  thought,  before  conscious- 
ness came  into  it. 

The  epistemological  idealist  declares  that  the  being 
of  the  external  universe  is  to  be  known.  And  though 
you  may  say  of  any  given  section  of  experience  that 
in  the  perception  of  its  quality  you  join  the  category 
of  quality  on  to  its  sense-data,  that  the  finding  of  the 
cause  of  any  given  effect  involves  the  application  of 
the  category  of  causality,  and  so  on  through  the  whole 
list,  still,  this  is  not  the  method  by  which  experience 
is  increased  section  by  section.  The  external  world 
becomes  known  by  processes  of  synthesis  and  analysis : 
not  by  such  synthesis  as  the  dabbing  of  categories  on 
to  sense-data,  nor  by  such  analysis  as  disentangling 
them  again  from  the  result;  but  by  thought's  patient, 
s'ubservient  following  of  processes  the  majority  of 
which  are  inherently  irrational,  irreducible  to  any 
thought. 

The  idealist  may  be  able  to  face  without  a  qualm 
the  idea  of  the  plesiosaurus  disporting  himself  on  his 
mesozoic  beach  when  there  isn't  anybody  to  look  at 
him,  the  idea  of  primordial  matter  in  motion,  of  worlds, 
indubitably  real,  whirling  away  in  space  millions  of 
years  before  the  appearance  of  consciousness  on  this 


10  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

planet.  His  Absolute  ensures  Mm  against  loss.  His 
cosmos  is  perfectly  safe,  floating  about  in  the  vast  con- 
sciousness of  the  Absolute.  The  plesiosaurus  is  not 
playing  to  an  empty  house,  for  he  has  the  all-appre- 
ciating eye  of  the  Absolute  upon  him.  So  far  the  ideal- 
ist has  nothing  to  worry  about. 

But  what  he  ought  to  worry  about  and  doesn't  is  the 
idea  of  a  cosmos  claimed  to  be  the  "work  of  thought" 
and  the  very  process  of  reason,  which  yet  contains  so 
many  things  that  are  not  reasonable,  so  may  processes 
that  are  not  processes  of  thought  at  all.  When  we  con- 
sider what  reason  is  and  what  it  does  and  what  it 
doesn't  do,  have  we  any  reason  to  suppose  that  in  the 
Absolute  consciousness  an  irrational  relation  becomes 
a  rational  one,  or  that  matter  in  motion,  say,  is  known 
as  spirit  at  rest? 

It  may  be.  The  pattern  of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole 
may  be  a  purely  static  affair.  Within  the  absolutely 
resting  Whole  matter  in  motion  may  turn  out  to  be  a 
mode  of  the  manifestation  of  spirit;  but,  if  it  does,  it 
will  not  be  by  virtue  of  its  epistemological  qualities; 
and  at  the  present  stage  of  proceedings  we  have  no 
business  to  assume  its  spirituality. 

For  it  is  the  thorough-going  irrationality  of  the  uni- 
verse that  is  dangerous  to  our  idealist.  The  bosom  of 
the  Absolute  is  not  the  comfortable  home  he  thinks  it 
is.  It  is  too  comprehensive,  too  hospitable  to  those 
irrational  elements. 

Look  at  some  of  them.  Who  can  measure  the  pro- 
portion of  reason  and  non-reason  in  the  universe? 
There  is  reason  in  certain  complexes,  in  all  adaptations 
of  means  to  ends ;  in  all  laws  derived  from  laws,  in  all 
generalisations  from  generalisations,  in  all  measures 
and  proportions.  There  is  reason  in  a  physical  equa- 
tion, in  a  resultant  whose  factors  are  known,  in  all 
mathematical    processes    apart    from    their   ultimate 


I  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  11 

terms ;  in  every  calculation  of  causes  whose  effects  are 
known  or  of  effects  whose  causes  are  known ;  in  every 
calculation  whose  terms  are  known;  in  every  relation 
whose  terms  are  known ;  in  every  quantity-quality  cor- 
relation when  the  original  connection  between  quantity 
and  quality  is  known. 

But  there  may  be  no  reason  in  the  original  connec- 
tion ;  for  example,  between  vibrations  of  a  certain  wave 
length  and  the  quality  red.  No  reason  in  the  connec- 
tion between  molecular  nerve  change  and  stimulus,  and 
between  nerve  change  and  the  sensum  red,  or  between 
an  act  of  will  and  muscular  contraction.  No  reason  in 
chemical  action  and  reaction,  in  magnetic  attraction; 
in  gravitation;  in  the  transformation  of  heat  into 
energy  and  energy  into  heat,  or  in  any  other  physical 
permutation,  no  reason  in  certain  fundamental  axioms 
of  mathematics,  in  any  irreducible,  indefinable  term, 
in  any  ultimate  entity.  We  shall  presently  see  that 
there  is  no  reason  in  pure  space  and  pure  time.  No 
reason,  it  would  seem,  in  the  very  elements  from  which 
the  cosmos  is  built  up. 

And  besides  his  confusion  of  being  with  knowing, 
and  his  neglect  of  those  ultimate,  irreducible  things, 
the  idealist  ignores  the  Will.  Will  is  chief  among  ulti- 
mate, irreducible  things.  If  Will  is  to  be  treated  merely 
as  a  department  of  human  psychology,  why  not 
thought?  In  what  respect  is  a  '' category"  (which, 
after  all,  has  got  to  be  put  there  by  somebody  or  some- 
thing) more  commendable  than  an  act  of  will?  Epis- 
temology  is  always  shirking  this  fundamental  problem 
of  the  will. 

What  are  we  to  say  then?  Is  the  realist  right  in  re- 
garding all  knowledge  as,  primarily,  discovery? 

The  idealist  is  faced  with  the  glaring  fact  that  there 
is  discovery,  not  only  in  the  physical  sciences,  but  in 
his  own  a  priori  realm.    If  he  stopped  to  consider  se- 


12  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

rionsly  what  he  means  when  he  talks  about  ''experi- 
ence ' '  he  would  see  that  he  is  juggling  with  the  double 
meaning  of  the  term.  Even  when  he  is  honest  and 
calls  the  thing  consciousness  all  the  time,  he  is  landed 
in  queer  places.  It  is  not  that  my  private  and  personal 
adventure,  the  process  by  which  I  enlarge  my  know- 
ledge, is  made  to  figure  as  an  ontology.  The  idealist 
distinguishes  between  the  empirical  experience  of  the 
ego  in  space  and  time  and  the  ontological  function  of 
the  categories.  He  can  insist  that  knowledge  is  only 
discovery  for  us,  for  finite  consciousnesses  progress- 
ing in  space  and  time.  Experiencing  is  not  experience. 
But  this  doesn't  help  him  very  much.  The  trouble  is 
that  the  actual  process  of  the  cosmos  bears  no  earthly 
resemblance  to  the  means  by  which  he  affirms  it  to  have 
arisen  in  consciousness. 

It  looks  as  if  he  would  have  to  surrender  to  the  first 
realist  who  comes  along  and  confronts  him  with  the 
diiference. 

But  no.  It  is  at  this  point  that  he  makes  his  bolt  for 
the  Absolute. 

Now  supposing  the  idealist  is  not  thinking  of  con- 
sciousness as  we  know  it  at  all;  that  he  has  made  a 
successful  bolt  and  found  his  refuge  in  the  Absolute. 
It  is  not  possible  that  thought  alone  should  be  this  Ab- 
solute. Whatever  else  it  does,  the  Absolute  must 
cover,  must  somehow  provide  for  all  those  recalcitrant, 
irrational,  unclarified  elements  that  make  up  half  the 
fabric  of  the  universe.  He  can  only  arrive  at  his  Ab- 
solute by  exposing  the  relativity  of  the  ultimate  cate- 
gories of  thought  and  filtering  them  away.  The  Ab- 
solute is  nothing  if  it  is  not  a  higher,  more  comprehen- 
sive term  than  thought,  higher  and  more  compre- 
hensive even  than  consciousness.  After  all,  being  is 
not  knowing,  and  knowing  is  not  being;  so  that  epis- 
temological  idealism  is  broken  on  its  own  wheel. 


I  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  13 

iii 

For  this  generation,  anyhow,  epistemological  ideal- 
ism is  dead ;  and  I  confess  I  do  not  see  how  there  can  Future 
be  any  resurrection  for  it.  With  its  one-sidedness,  its  J^^^j^^j^ 
blindness  to  the  actual  pattern  of  the  universe,  its  fan- 
tastic logic,  its  failure  to  correlate  the  forms  and  pro- 
cesses of  thought  with  the  forms  and  processes  of 
things,  it  was  bound  to  provoke  a  formidable  reaction. 

I  think  it  must  be  admitted  that  new  realists  are 
right  in  contending  that  there  are  things  in  the  uni- 
verse which  forever  escape  the  snare  of  thought;  that 
you  might  as  well  put  salt  on  its  tail  as  try  to  catch  the 
universe  that  way.  By  no  conceivable  process  can  it 
be  reduced  to  terms  of  mere  knowing.  To  conscious- 
ness as  we  know  it  the  universe  presents  an  obstinately 
objective  front. 

Now  it  is  against  all  precedent  that  any  philosophic 
system  should  appear  again  in  the  precise  form  in 
which  it  originated.  If  idealism  is  to  survive,  if  a  New 
Idealism  is  to  spring  up  by  way  of  reaction  from  the 
New  Realism,  it  will  be  a  system  as  far  removed  from 
logics  and  epistemologies  as  the  idealisms  of  Kant  and 
Hegel,  of  Green  and  Bosanquet  and  Bradley  are  re- 
moved from  the  sensational  idealism  of  Berkeley  and 
of  Hume. 

If  it  is  to  survive 

It  is  unthinkable  that  Idealism  should  remain  unaf- 
fected by  the  profound  change  that  has  come  into  phi- 
losophy with  the  appearance  of  the  New  Realism. 
Clearly  it  has  got  to  move  on  or  go  under.  These  essays 
are  an  attempt — slight,  I  am  aware,  and  imperfect,  as 
such  tentative  efforts  must  be — to  estimate  the  effect 
of  the  New  Realism,  to  map  out  the  first  lines  of  pos- 
sible movement.  One  thing  is  obvious :  that  no  advance 
is  possible  without  definite  revisions  and  surrenders. 
Idealism  must  not  underrate  the  enemy's  forces,  and 


14  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  i 

it  must  be  prepared  to  cede  certain  territory.  It  must 
leave  behind  it  certain  nobly  built  redoubts,  certain 
cherished  positions  no  longer  tenable.  It  must  give  up 
its  unnatural  logics,  scrap  its  obsolete  apparatus  of 
thought-relations. 

And  it  must  change  its  methods.  It  must  once  more 
be  empirical,  critical,  reactive.  And  that  is  no  simple 
affair  of  surrenders  and  concessions.  Idealism  must 
effect  an  entire  change  of  front.  It  must  come  out  into 
the  open  and  external  universe  of  things.  It  must 
somehow  contrive  to  reconcile  the  universe  of  things 
with  the  universe  of  thought,  without  doing  violence  to 
its  palpable  objectivity.  It  must  cease  to  make  non- 
sense of  the  plain  principles  of  physical  science,  and 
of  the  plain  man's  progress  in  the  world  of  so-called 
physical  realities;  and  it  must  be  proof  against  all 
attacks  based  on  the  behaviour  of  that  world. 

First  of  all,  then,  the  New  Idealism  has  to  do  as  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  tells  us,  ''Take  space  and  time 
seriously." 


n 

THE  NEW  REALISM 


The  New  Realism  was  bound  to  come.  Other  phi- 
losophies anticipated  its  insurgence  against  the  per-  ^^V 
sistent  tyranny  of  the  Absolute  and  the  One.  I  think  Position 
it  was  William  James  who  first  pointed  out  that  the 
appetite  for  unity  is  not  a  universal  one.  It  seemed 
to  him  a  perverted  appetite,  or  at  best  an  acquired 
taste,  a  psychological  eccentricity  which,  as  it  has  no 
bearing  upon  conduct,  the  pragmatist  need  not  take 
into  account. 

But  Humanism,  Pragmatism  and  Vitalism  did  little 
but  revolt;  they  were  incapable  of  accomplishing  a 
revolution.  None  of  the  three  had  anything  that  could 
be  called  a  logic  or  an  ontology.  Still,  by  setting  up 
irrelevant  standards  they  succeeded  in  side-tracking 
philosophy  for  quite  a  number  of  years;  Humanism 
defending  the  honest  man's  claim  for  possession  of  a 
world  of  real  things  uncontaminated  by  subjective 
processes;  Pragmatism  turning  its  back  on  the  quest 
for  '' ultimate"  reality  and  substituting  its  scale  of 
*' working"  values  for  the  logical  criteria  of  truth ;  both 
boosting  the  ''Many"  at  the  expense  of  the  One;  Vital- 
ism presenting  its  elan  vital  as  the  ultimate  reality,  and 
reconstructing  the  perceived  cosmos  with  reference  to 
our  action  and  our  action  only,  going  from  one  contra- 
diction and  confusion  to  another  in  its  attempt  to  re- 
concile realism  and  idealism,  physical  science  and  meta- 
physics.   They  have  nothing  in  common  with  the  new 

15 


16  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

realism  but  their  respect  for  ''external"  reality  and 
their  distaste  for  the  Absolute  of  idealist  monism. 
They  need  not  detain  us  here.^ 

Realism  then  starts  with  a  criticism  of  the  idealist 
theory  of  knowledge  and  being.  Its  method  is  strictly 
empirical.  It  takes  the  cosmos  provisionally  at  its  face 
value  and  asks:  Why  assume  that  this  is  a  universe 
rather  than  a  pluriverse?  Why  assume  that  it  is  a 
world  of  appearances  rather  than  of  real  things  1  Why 
assume  that  its  being  is  only  to  be  known  1  If  you  are 
going  by  appearances,  which  is  all  that  on  your  own 
showing  you  have  to  go  on,  then  the  cosmos  presents 
every  appearance  of  plurality,  every  appearance  of  in- 
dependent reality  utterly  outside  consciousness.  But 
this  independence  and  outsideness  is  more  than  a  mere 
matter  of  appearance ;  it  follows  from  the  nature  both 
of  reality  and  of  knowing.  If  a  thing  is  known,  ipso 
facto  it  is  something  more  than  the  act,  or  state  (which- 
ever it  may  be)  of  knowing.  Idealism  assumes  that 
u  this  act  or  state  is  simpler  than  it  really  is.  Knowing 
involves  at  least  two  terms  and  a  relation,  whether  you 
take  the  subject  and  object  as  your  terms  and  con- 
sciousness as  your  relation,  or  consciousness  and  the 
object  of  consciousness,  when  your  relation  will  be  an 
unknown  x.  In  either  case  the  object  will  stand  on  its 
own  feet  as  a  separate  and  independent  entity,  which 
is  all  that  realism  wants. 

Now  the  realist  complains  with  every  show  of  reason 
that  the  idealist  mistakes  the  nature  of  the  terms  and 
the  relation,  and  confuses  the  ratio  essendi  with  the 
ratio  cognoscendi.  When  the  two  theories  are  tried 
out  pluralistic  realism  shows  itself  more  scientific,  and 
would  seem  to  conform  better  to  the  actual,  known 
processes  of  the  cosmos.  The  new  realist  revolution- 
ises philosophic  thought  by  abandoning  the  ego-centric 

*See  A   Defeiu:e  of  Idealism,  pp.  51-74. 


II  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  17 

position.  The  ego-centric  position  is  to  him  what  the 
Ptolemaic  system  was  to  Copernicus,  a  whole  stellar 
cosmos  turning  round  a  comparatively  insignificant 
earth.  This  looks  as  if  the  new  realist  ignored  every 
form  of  idealism  but  solipsism.  But  if  you  grant  his 
premises,  objective  and  absolute  idealism  are  equally 
vulnerable  to  his  attack.  No  act  of  mere  knowing,  even ' 
if  it  were  absolute — and  knowing  is  purely  relative  to 
the  known  and  to  the  knower — no  act  of  knowing  could 
confer  reality  upon  its  object.  Things  are  not  there  • 
because  we  know  them ;  we  know  them  because  they  are 
there.  And  the  Absolute,  even  if  it  existed,  could  not 
know,  for  knowing  would  at  once  involve  it  in  relations. 
So  that  outside  finite  and  relative  consciousness  there 
is  no  knowing  to  sustain  the  universe,  and  no  finite  and 
relative  consciousness  is  equal  to  the  job.  Besides,  we 
have  no  experience  of  any  finite  and  relative  conscious- 
ness but  our  own ;  and  it  is  obviously  absurd  to  sup- 
pose that  our  own  consciousness  confers  being  on  a 
cosmos  known  to  have  existed  ages  before  we  did. 
Even  now  that  we  are  here,  by  far  the  greater  part  of 
the  cosmos  continues  to  exist  outside  the  bounds  of 
our  awareness  and  according  to  laws  which  are  very 
far  from  being  the  laws  of  our  thought.  Obsessed  with 
I  the  idea  of  knowledge  as  being,  the  idealist  ignores  its 
essential  nature  as  discovery.  Obsessed  with  the  unity 
of  the  Whole  he  forgets  that  discovery  is  partial  and 
incomplete.  What  trifling  unity  there  may  be  in  a 
pluralistic  universe  is  a  real  unity  independent  of  the 
alleged  unity  of  consciousness. 

But  though  the  new  realist  cannot  abide  unity  in  any 
sense  of  totality,  and  excludes  it  from  his  pluriverse, 
he  swears  by  continuity:  that  continuity  of  time  and 
space  which  ensures  the  reality  of  both,  and  with  it  the 
reality  of  all  objects  and  movements  and  relations  in 
the  world  of  space  and  time.    In  a  cosmos  said  to  be 


18  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

real,  absolutely  real,  you  cannot  have  insoluble  contra- 
dictions of  time  and  space.  To  the  realist  the  real  is 
absolute,  though  the  Absolute  is  not  the  real.  Mr. 
Bertrand  Russell,  for  one,  would  probably  object  to 
my  saying  that  he  bases  the  reality  of  the  perceived 
external  world  on  the  findings  of  pure  mathematics.  He 
would  contend  that  the  realist  theory  of  perception 
can  very  well  afford  to  stand  on  its  own  feet.  All  the 
same  it  is  clear  that  he  regards  the  mathematical  con- 
tinuum of  the  compact  series  as  destructive  to  any 
idealist  theory  based  on  the  antinomies  of  space  and 
time.^  The  last  thing  that  the  ideahst  desires  is  their 
solution,  and  it  is  precisely  this  solution  that  the  realist 
confronts  him  with.  Between  any  two  points  in  space 
or  any  two  instants  in  time  there  is  an  infinite  number 
of  points  or  instants.  There  are,  that  is  to  say,  no  gaps 
and  no  nextness  of  point  to  point  or  instant  to  instant, 
nothing  anywhere  that  is  not  pure  space  and  pure  time, 
an  indisputable  continuum. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  that  this  theory  links  up  the 
space  and  time  of  pure  mathematics  with  the  actual 
space  and  time  of  physics  in  one  system  of  reality; 
so  that,  unless  the  idealist  can  succeed  in  picking  a  hole 
in  the  mathematician 's  continuum  he  cannot  throw  any 
metaphysical  doubt  on  the  reality  of  motion.  Achilles 
— even  if  we  conceive  him  moving  in  pure  space  and 
pure  time — Achilles  with  a  given  velocity  would  cover 
any  given  stretch  of  space  in  any  given  time  and  would 
infallibly  overtake  the  tortoise.  And  the  new  realism 
claims  to  have  done  away  for  ever  with  the  Kantian 
antinomies  of  space  and  time. 

Thus,  given  the  absolute  external  reality  of  space, 
time  and  motion,  the  absolute  external  reality  of  mat- 
ter follows  unconditionally;  and  in  approaching  the 
problem  of  perception  from  the  periphery  the  realist 

*  Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World. 


II  THE  CEITICAL  PREPARATIONS  19 

succeeds  in  bringing  Ms  philosophy  into  line  with 
physics  and  mathematics.    In  no  sense  are  things  there/' 
because  we  perceive  them;  we  perceive  them  because 
they  are  there  and  they  owe  nothing  to  our  perceiving. 

This  is  true,  even  of  such  apparently  subjective  af- 
fairs as  pain  or  anger.  Pain,  according  to  the  new  real- 
ist, is  not  a  subjective  affection,  it  is  a  thing,  as  ob- 
jective and  external  as  a  tree  in  a  field.  Pain  is  where 
it  professes  to  be  and  where  I  perceive  it,  in  my  big 
toe  and  not  in  my  consciousness.  It  follows  that  we 
perceive  things  as  they  are  and  that  they  are  what  they 
appear  to  be.  Properly  speaking,  in  a  realistic  uni- 
verse there  can  be  no  appearances,  for  every  appear- 
ance is  itself  a  reality.  We  shall  have  to  return  to  this  \ 
question  when  we  are  considering  the  nature  of  reality ;  •' 
but  for  the  present  we  may  take  it  that  in  the  universe 
as  an  existence  there  is  no  deception,  and  things  are 
what  they  appear  at  the  moment  of  their  appearing, 
and  every  aspect  of  reality  is  real.  The  straight  stick 
appears  bent  in  the  water,  the  cube  is  convex  one  min- 
ute and  concave  the  next,  as  you  shift  your  eyes,  but 
the  stick's  crookedness  in  water  is  as  real  to  the  eye 
as  its  straightness  is  real  to  the  touch;  both  are  real 
aspects  of  the  stick,  but  in  different  contexts.  The 
same  holds  good  of  the  convex  and  concave  cube.  In 
mistaking  appearances  for  reality  we  are  not  dealing 
with  appearance  at  all,  we  are  simply  referring  reality 
to  the  wrong  context.  In  the  case  of  the  stick  we  say 
that  touch  * '  corrects ' '  the  finding  of  the  eye,  that  it  is 
"truer";  but  this  only  means  that  it  affirms  a  more 
constant  relation.  The  eye  also  sees  truly  what  is  there 
— the  visual  and  temporary  aspect  of  the  stick  in  water. 

But  there  are  eyes  and  eyes.  My  friend  is  blind  to 
red.  To  him  all  heather  is  blue  and  all  poppies  are 
yellow.  It  may  be  said  that  his  eye  sets  up  a  private 
scene  in  contradistinction  to  mine.    So  it  does.    But 


20  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

his  scene  is  just  as  real,  just  as  external  to  his  per- 
ceiving as  mine ;  in  the  matter  of  objectivity  there  isn't 
a  pin  to  choose  between  them. 

At  the  same  time  it  is  now  evident  that  the  sensible 
properties  of  this  "spectacular  universe"  depend  on 
something  private  to  the  spectator.  In  what  sense, 
then,  do  we  see  the  same  things^  It  is  clear  that  we 
do  not  see  the  same  forms,  for  we  each  approach  them 
from  a  separate  angle  and  see  them  in  a  different  per- 
spective. Only  when  I  have  changed  places  with  my 
neighbour  can  we  be  said  to  see  the  same  thing,  but  our 
seeing  is  now  in  another  time.  Our  times  and  our 
spaces  can  never  by  any  possibility  coincide ;  therefore 
we  are  perceiving  different  universes  and  there  will  be 
as  many  universes  of  sensible  qualities  as  there  are 
spectators,  and  each  one  of  them  will  have  the  same 
absolute  reality  independent  of  our  perceiving.  And 
all  these  universes  will  arise  from  the  play  of  the  ulti- 
mate, unperceived  constituents  of  matter  in  motion 
within  a  system  which  is  one  and  the  same  for  all  of 
us.  It  is  our  bodies,  each  with  its  complex  of  nerve 
cells,  sense-organs  and  brain  cortex,  that  multiply  the 
sensibles  of  this  universe  into  so  many  sensa  and  break 
up  its  one  space  into  innumerable  perspectives.  First 
we  have  certain  converging  lines  of  matter  in  motion 
communicating  their  vibrations  along  our  afferent 
nerves  to  our  various  sense-organs,  which  pass  on  the 
shock  of  the  encounter  to  the  cerebral  cortex.  If  we 
say  that  the  " sensum  blue"  is  a  " f ulguration "  ^  (to 
use  Professor  Alexander's  word),  arising  from  this 
contact  we  shall  have  as  many  different  sensa  as  there 
are  shocks.  It  follows  that  in  the  absence  of  bodies 
with  their  sense-organs  and  cerebral  cortices  no  sensa 

^  The  Basis  of  Bealism,  pp.  16-17.  "  Fulguration "  is  Professor  Alex- 
ander's word,  but  he  would  repudiate  the  context.     He  denies  that  the 

sensum  is  relative  to  the  sense-organ.  See  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol. 
II,  p.  141.     Also  below:  pp.  203-204. 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  21 

will  be  **  there  " ;  only  sensibles,  permanent  possibilities 
of  sensa.  When  we  all  leave  the  room,  the  room  as  a 
constellation  of  "  f ulgurations, "  a  complex  of  sensa, 
ceases  to  exist,  not  because  our  minds  have  moved  on, 
but  because  we  have  removed  our  bodies.  Thus  all  our 
movements  will  affect  the  universe  profoundly.  Our 
approaches  will  mark  the  swift  or  gradual  increase  in 
the  vividness  and  complexity  of  the  "f ulgurations," 
our  departures  their  swift  or  gradual  diminishing,  fad- 
ing and  extinction;  one  coruscation  arising,  swiftly  or 
gradually,  as  another  vanishes,  with  a  continuous  over- 
lapping of  edges.  Our  cosmos  will  only  "stay  put" 
when  we  stand  still.  We  shall  have  to  consider  the 
full  implications  of  this  theory  later  on;  meanwhile, 
observe  that  it  gives  to  space  and  time  and  their  cor- 
relations an  importance  which  they  can  never  here- 
after lose,  of  which  any  future  metaphysics  will  have 
to  take  account.  It  may  be  said  that  the  new  realism 
is  literally  the  first  philosophic  system  in  which  space 
and  time  have  been  taken  seriously.  This  is  especially 
owing  to  the  brilliant  work  of  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell, 
Professor  Whitehead  and  Professor  Alexander. 
/  Now,  as  on  some  realists'  own  showing,^  every  spec- 
tator carries  about  with  him  his  own  system  of  fulgura- 
tions  and  his  own  private  perspective,  since  we  are 
not  conscious  of  the  same  sensa,  in  what  sense  can  we 
be  said  to  inhabit  the  same  world  ?  This  is  a  question, 
not  of  ontology,  of  the  nature  of  reality,  nor  of  episte- 
mology,  of  the  nature  of  knowing,  nor  yet  of  psychol- 
ogy, but  of  physics  and  mathematics.  We  do  not  per- 
ceive the  same  sensa,  but  we  perceive  the  effects  oF'^V 
the  same  sensibles.  We  inhabit  the  same  world  of 
space  and  time,  of  matter  in  motion,  of  geometrical 
construction  and  proportion,   of  quantity  and  num- 

^Mr.  Bertrand  Eussell  and  Professor  Broad  are  mainly  responsible. 

See  below:  pp.  79-81  and  252-259. 


22  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

ber.  There  may  be  two  or  two  miUion  blues  for 
every  two  or  two  million  spectators,  there  is  only  one 
space  and  one  time,  one  matter,  one  set  of  energies  and 
motions,  only  one  set  of  laws  of  motion,  one  set  of  geo- 
metrical axioms  and  problems,  one  set  of  each  system 
of  co-ordinates,  one  algebra  and  one  arithmetic ;  in  two 
words,  one  science.  This  uniformity,  it  should  be 
noted,  only  holds  good  within  a  given  system;  when 
we  come  to  examine  the  metaphysical  validity  of  the 
statement  we  shall  find  that  we  have  to  accept  it  with 
certain  reservations.^ 

The  important  thing  for  realism  is  that  within  our 
cosmic  system  we  have  only  one  physical  space  and 
one  time,  and  that,  as  all  spaces  are  parts  of  one  space, 
and  all  parts  of  space  are  spaces  and  all  parts  of  time 
are  times,  and  all  correlations  of  space-time  are  spatio- 
temporal,  it  is  possible  to  correlate  all  private  perspec- 
tives with  what  Mr.  Bertrand  Eussell  calls  public 
space.^  The  same  will  hold  good  of  times  and  there- 
fore of  events. 

ii 

Now  if  the  subject  is  the  mere  spectator  of  its  per- 
Reaiist    cepts,  what  happens  when  we  remember,  imagine  and 
mieory    anticipate?    Hitherto  even  materialists  have  surrend- 
Memory  ered  memory  and  imagination  to  the  subjective  side, 
denying  their  external  reality  on  that  account.    Hith- 
erto, as  regards  the  memory  image — and  the  image  of 
imagination  is  only  a  memory  image  torn  from  its 
original  context  and  placed  in  another  setting — the 
idealist  could  always  claim  that  this  incontestably  sub- 
jective  thing  bears   every  mark   of  its   *' objective" 
prototype,  except  scale  weight,  organic  behaviour  and 
practical  utility.     The  horse  of  my  memory  is  chest- 

*  On  the  Einstein  Eelativity  theory  there  will  be  many  time-systems 
and  no  real  motion.     See  below:  pp.  243-245. 
*Our  Knowledge  of  the  External  World:  pp.  87-92. 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPAEATIONS  23 

nut,  he  has  the  colour,  the  shape,  and  all  the  points 
of  the  real  horse,  he  may  even  be  said  to  have  motion 
over  a  certain  limited  field  of  remembered  space ;  but 
he  cannot  be  weighed,  he  isn't  alive,  and  I,  except  in 
memory,  cannot  ride  him.  A  certain  vague  memory  of 
weight  may  seem  to  attach  to  the  image  of  objects  once 
held  or  carried;  but  this,  obviously,  must  be  counted 
as  memory  of  muscular  sensations  associated  with  the 
image  rather  than  a  property  of  the  image  itself.  Still, 
as  far  as  it  goes,  the  memory  image  presents  the  same 
sensory  appearances  as  the  perceived  thing.  When 
I  am  carrying  on  a  train  of  thought  in  words,  the  words 
are  memory  echoes,  but  they  have  the  sound  of  words 
spoken ;  if  I  visualise  them  as  printed,  typed  or  written, 
they  will  have  the  look  of  ' '  real ' '  print,  type  or  writ- 
ing; and  the  idealist  has  a  right  to  say:  If  memory 
images  are  "mental"  in  the  sense  of  existing  in  con- 
sciousness and  nowhere  else ;  if  they  present  the  same 
qualities  of  extended  colour,  of  shape,  sound  and 
so  on  as  the  original,  perceived  objects,  what  grounds 
have  you  for  denying  that  those  original,  perceived 
objects  may  be  mental,  may  exist  only  in  conscious- 
ness, too? 

The  materialist  can  do  nothing  but  reply  that  the 
memory  image,  though  not  a  real  outside  object  in  a 
real,  outside  space  world,  does  not  owe  its  existence 
to  consciousness  any  more  than  the  perceived  object 
does,  but  is  a  mere  sensory  revival  arising  from  in- 
ternal stimulation  of  the  sense-organs  through  the  cere- 
bral cortex.  And  the  idealist  may  still  retort  that  he 
knows  all  that ;  that  we  have  nothing  here  but  the  same 
psycho-physical  correspondence  he  is  already  familiar 
with  in  the  mechanism  of  perception ;  and  on  his  theory 
the  entire  system  of  correspondence  falls  inside  con- 
sciousness, since  his  body  and  the  space-time  it  moves 
in  are  already  inside. 


24  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

This  argument,  from  the  common  qualities  of  ob- 
jects perceived  and  remembered,  is  met  by  the  new 
realist  in  a  very  drastic  fashion.  What  earthly  reason 
have  you  for  supposing,  he  says,  that  the  memory 
image  is  an  image  at  all?  Or  that  it  is  mental?  If 
the  object  perceived  and  the  object  remembered  are 
both  real  outside  things  in  a  real  outside  world,  that 
would  account  for  the  sameness  of  their  qualities.  It 
would  be  possible  on  a  realistic  theory  to  regard  mem- 
ory images  as  sensa  revived  by  internal  stimulation  of 
the  cortex,  having  their  place,  not  in  the  great  world 
of  public  space,  but  in  a  circumscribed  area  some- 
where inside  your  head.  But  this  is  to  do  less  than 
justice  to  their  wide  spatial  character,  their  distances 
and  perspectives.  The  image  theory,  therefore,  in- 
volves phantasmal  reduplication  of  space. 

But  new  realists  are  scrapping  all  this  clumsy  ap- 
paratus of  the  memory  image.  Professor  Laird,  for 
one,  does  not  hesitate.  He  declares  roundly  that  the 
object  remembered  is  the  same  thing  as  the  object 
perceived. 

"Recollection  seems  to  be  direct  acquaintance  with  the  past."* 

To  the  new  realist  things  are  what  they  seem. 

.  .  .  "things  perceived  and  remembered  are  independent  of  the  mind 
and  directly  apprehended  by  it.  Our  grounds  for  this  conclusion, 
were,  briefly,  that  they  seem  to  be  so,  that  the  best  reason  for  their 
seeming  so  is  that  they  really  are  so,  and  that  all  arguments  which 
purport  to  prove  that  they  are  not  so  are  inconclusive."  * 

Thus: 

"According  to  the  usual  theory.  Smith's  recollections  of  his  ascent 
of  the  Matterhom  are  a  series  of  representative  images  in  his 
specious  present.  These  images  are  what  is  in  his  mind  when  he 
relates  his  adventures  at  his  own  fireside,  and  in  that  ease  there 
is  no  room  for  direct  recollection  of  the  ascent  itself.  Smith's  mem- 
ory is  not  split  in  two.    He  does  not  see  these  images  and  also  the 

^A  Study  in  Realism,  p.  52. 
*The  same,  p.  64. 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  25 

Matterhorn.  .    .    .  There  is  only  one  thing  before  his  mind  as  he 
tells  his  modest  story,  and  our  problem  is  what  that  thing  is. 

He  remembers,  I  think,  the  very  thing  that  he  perceived  .  .  . 
for  in  both  cases  he  is  aware  of  the  Matterhorn."  * 

This,  because,  if  he  did  not,  if  a  series  of  images 
interposed  between  him  and  the  object  of  his  recollec- 
tion he  could  never  be  sure  that  what  he  was  remember- 
ing was  the  Matterhorn.  To  remember  the  Matterhorn 
is  to  have  it  immediately  before  consciousness.  On 
the  image  theory  what  is  immediately  before  conscious- 
ness is  an  image. 

Memory  is,  in  fact,  perception,  not  of  the  object  as 
it  exists  now  (for  the  object  may  be  changed  or  dead) 
but  .as  it  was  perceived.  We  perceive  it  for  ever  as 
we  perceived  it  then. 

"Smith's  memory  is  limited  to  the  past  Matterhorn  just  as  his 
perception  was  limited  to  the  Matterhorn  at  the  time  he  perceived 
it.  .  .  .  Smith,  therefore,  remembers  the  mountain  in  the  state  in 
which  he  formerly  perceived  it.  .  .  .  Memory  does  not  mean  the 
existence  of  present  representatives  of  past  things.  It  is  the  mind's 
awareness   of   past   things   themselves."  * 

In  every  case  of  remembering,  then,  we  perceive,  and 
it  is  only  by  its  time  element  that  we  distinguish  be- 
tween memory  and  perception. 

Objects  that  have  changed  their  context  we  in  mem- 
ory perceive  in  their  original  context;  those  that  are 
changing,  that  go  on  changing  their  contexts,  as  in 
continuous  motion,  we  perceive  in  all  their  successive 
contexts,  each  with  its  own  date.  And  objects  may  ex- 
change contexts. 

Observe,  on  this  theory,  the  importance  of  the  role 
of  time.  These  objects,  outside  as  they  are  and  real, 
would  be  occupying  each  other's  spaces  if  it  were  not 
for  time  that  divides  up  their  spaces  and  gives  to  each 
one  its  proper  ''place"  in  the  past. 

^  A  Study  in  Bealism,  p.  55. 
'  The  same,  p.  56.    . 


26  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

And  it  is  the  same  with  the  imagined  object,  Pro- 
fessor Laird's  *' stuff  of  fancy."  The  imagined  object 
is  essentially  "stuff,"  a  real  thing,  a  memory  object 
serving  in  a  context  which  again  is  itself  made  up  of 
memory  contexts  in  which  the  object  need  not  and  com- 
monly has  not  originally  figured.  I  do  not  know  how  far 
Professor  Laird  would  allow  that  this  shifting  of  com- 
plexes, this  transplanting  and  rearranging  of  memory 
objects  in  different  space  and  time  contexts  is  the  work 
of  the  subject.  But  on  any  realist  theory  the  subject 
cannot  create ;  it  is  not  even  making  something  *  *  up " 
out  of  ideas  in  its  head;  it  is  using  old  material  all 
the  time,  real  outside  material. 

"Images  are  the  mimics  of  percepts."  * 

But, 

"These  mimics  of  sense  which  we  call  images  must  have  the  same 
status  as  percepts.  If  the  latter  are  objects  the  former  are  too.  If 
one  is  a  mental  event  so  is  the  other.  The  imaged  St.  Sofia  is  domed 
and  minaretted  and  shapely  just  as  the  perceived  St.  Sofia  is,  so 
that  if  the  perceived  St.  Sofia  cannot  be  mental  (on  the  ground, 
say,  that  the  mind  itself  cannot  be  coloured  or  extended)  the  imaged 
St.  Sofia  cannot  be  mental  either  (for  precisely  the  same  reason)."* 

.  .  .  "images  have  the  same  status  as  perceived  and  remembered 
things.  They  are  apprehended  things  confronting  the  mind  and 
not  varieties  of  mental  operations.  They  are  given  to  the  mind,  like 
anything  else  that  it  discovers.' 

But  they  are  not  identical  with  perceived  things. 
With  things  remembered — probably.  I  think  Profes- 
sor Laird  takes  the  image  to  be  a  memory  object  torn 
from  its  context  in  memory.  He  regards  its  **  ele- 
ments" as  having  been  once  perceived, 

"and  in  that  case  there  is  nothing  to  hinder  us  from  supposing 
that  the  elements  imaged  at  any  time  are  literally  the  same  elements 
as  those  formerly  perceived."  * 

^A  Study  in  Bealism,  p.  62. 
•The  same,  pp.   63,  64. 

•  The  same,  p.  64. 

*  The  same,  p.  69. 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  27 

So  that  when  Keats  wrote  about 

"Magic  casements  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas  in  fairylands  forlorn," 

he  was  merely  rearranging  his  old  percepts  of  open 
casements  and  foam  and  seas,  and  his  concepts  of 
peril  and  forlornness,  in  a  new  and  charming  juxta- 
position with  other  old  percepts  picked  up  God  knows 
where  and  labelled  "magic"  and  "fairyland." 

And  the  objects  of  anticipation  ought  to  be  every 
bit  as  real  and  outside  as  the  objects  of  memory;  but  I 
gather  from  Professor  Laird  that  they  are  not — quite. 
They  refer  to  the  future  and  not  to  the  past,  and  even  a 
new  realist  cannot  say  that  the  future  is  perceived. 
To  be  sure,  so  far  as  an  anticipated  event  is  really  a 
present  or  past  event  projected  into  the  future,  it  has 
outside  reality.  It  has  not  the  directness  of  the  re- 
membered object. 

.  .  .  "Expectation  is  always  a  present  fact  representing  the  fu- 
ture. .  .  .  Our  anticipations  represent  the  future,  and  yet  we  can 
never  be  directly  acquainted  with  the  future.  .  .  .  The  future  is 
never  observed."* 

"Whereas  our  memories  do  not  represent  the  past, 
they  present  it. 

Here  I  think  Professor  Laird  is  not  getting  all  the 
advantage  he  might  out  of  his  realism.  In  a  sense 
anticipation  is  literally  a  looking  forward  as  memory 
is  a  looking  back.  And  the  ' '  stuff ' '  of  anticipation,  like 
the  "stuff  of  fancy,"  is  taken  from  present  or  past  out- 
side experience,  only  set  in  a  firmer  context.  And  in- 
sofar as  future  events  have  a  way  of  differing  pro- 
foundly from  past  and  present  ones,  our  anticipations 
are  apt  to  be  wrong.  The  true  anticipation  is  a  lucky 
hit,  a  projectile  that  coincides  with  its  target. 

Rational  prediction  is  another  matter,  inasmuch  as 

*  A  Study  in  Bealism,  pp.  52,  53. 


28  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

it  is  firmly  grounded  in  the  present  and  the  past:  it 
is  not  a  hit,  but  an  extension  of  the  real,  outside  uni- 
formity of  nature.  It  is  this  grounding  in  the  real  that 
enables  us  in  some  sort  to  share  each  other's  memories 
and  anticipations,  so  that  even  in  remembering  and 
anticipating  we  inhabit  the  same  world. 

Professor  Alexander's  theory  leads  directly  to  the 
same  conclusions.  But  in  this  connection  I  have  pre- 
ferred to  quote  Professor  Laird's  A  Study  in  Realism 
rather  than  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  because  he  has 
given  an  unusually  important  place  to  memory  and 
imagining,  whereas  in  the  larger  work  they  are  more 
or  less  subordinate  to  Professor  Alexander's  general 
view  of  space-time. 

There  is  yet  another  very  vital  sense  in  which  we 
inhabit  the  same  world.  There  will  be  as  many  per- 
cepts or  complexes  of  percepts  as  there  are  sensa  or 
complexes  of  sensa,  and  there  will  be  as  many  sensa 
as  there  are  acts  of  sensing,  even  when  we  are  dealing 
with  one  subject  only;  but  to  many  acts  of  conceiving 
by  many  subjects  there  will  be  only  one  concept  or  com- 
plex of  concepts.  Concepts  in  the  realistic  universe /^ 
are  not  the  work  of  thought ;  they  are  independent  ex- 
ternal realities.  According  to  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell 
they  subsist  out  of  space  and  out  of  time.  According 
to  Professor  Alexander  they  are  deducible  from  space- 
time.  In  either  case  the  mind  is  passive  and  not  active 
in  conceiving;  it  adds  nothing.  We  are  merely  spec- 
tators of  our  concepts  as  we  are  spectators  of  our  per- 
cepts ;  with  this  difference,  that  we  are  all  looking  on 
at  the  same  thing.  If  it  were  not  so  there  would  be  no 
truth,  only  private  opinions.  And  so  far,  again,  the 
new  realism  would  seem  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of 
the  world  as  we  know  it. 


II  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  29 


ui 

The  position  of  the  categories  on  this  scheme  is  par- 
ticularly interesting.    As  outside  entities,  independent  of  the 
of  consciousness,  categories  are  objects  among  other  ca^ 
objects  planted  out  in  the  universe.    Thus  they  will  be  Relation 
constitutive  of  the  universe  in  a  very  definite  and  real  ^^^j. 
way,  a  way  that,  so  far  from  implying  that  the  universe  edge 
is  the  work  of  thought,  sets  thought  altogether  on  one 
side  as  a  casual  looker-on.    Casual  because  it  is  indif- 
ferent to  the  reality  of  the  universe  whether  it  is  looked 
on  at  or  not.    Thought  is  not  the  builder  and  the  mover^ 
it  is  the  discoverer  of  reality.    Thought  moves,  so  far  as 
it  can  be  said  to  move  at  all,  always  in  the  path  of  dis- 
covery; it  corrects  experience  by  experience,  finding 
complexity  in  the  given  simple,  simplifying  relations  in 
the  given  complex ;  it  has  the  power,  a  power  that  any 
critical  on-looker  might  have,  of  adjusting  old  experi- 
ence to  new;  and  though  it  would  seem  to  have  an  al- 
together independent  power  of  selection  and  rejection, 
its  choice  is  really  determined  for  it  by  the  require- 
ments of  the  given  and  external  context.    "Power"  is 
not  a  word  that  should  be  used  in  this  connection. 
Thought  in  the  sense  of  thinking  always  finds  rela- 
tions and  does  not  make  them.    Therefore  in  no  sense 
can  thinking  be  said  to  relate.    Like  the  sensum,  like 
the  percept,  each  thought-category  will  be  a  little  ab- 
solute on  its  own  account. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  dealing  with  terms  of  rela- 
xions  only;  on  the  new  realist  theory  every  one  of 
these  is  a  hard  and  fast  reality.  But  the  relations 
themselves  have  a ^ still  more  peculiar  position;  for 
each  relation  is  also  an  independent  entity,  external 
not  only  to  consciousness  but  to  its  own  terms.  That  is 
to  say  relations  are  absolute.  Where  relations  are 
themselves  related  they  do  not  lose  this  character,  be- 


30  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

cause  this  relation  will  be  external  to  its  terms,  too, 
and  absolute.  At  least  this  follows  from  the  theory 
of  external  relations.  It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  not 
every  realist  is  committed  to  it  without  reservation. 

Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  will  not  allow  that  any  rela- 
tion is  ' '  grounded  in  the  nature  of  its  terms, ' '  because, 
in  the  case  of  the  whole  and  part  and  subject  and  predi- 
cate relations  you  would  get  no  real,  neat  distinction 
between  the  terms,  nothing  but  a  common  mush  of 
unity.  If,  that  is  to  say,  you  have  got  your  relation 
tucked  into  your  terms  already — concealed  in  their 
"nature" — their  entering  into  that  relation  will  make 
no  difference.  If  it  is  not  tucked  in,  if  it  does  make 
a  difference,  it  is  an  external  relation. 

But  Dr.  Moore  is  rather  more  precise.  He  distin- 
guishes between  relations  and  "relational  properties,'* 
and  admits  that  while  some  relations  are  external  in 
the  sense  that  it  makes  no  difference  to  the  numerical 
identity  (he  might  just  as  well  have  said  the  substance, 
or  existence)  of  the  term  whether  it  has  the  relational 
property  in  question  or  not,  others  may  be  said  to  be 
internal  in  the  sense  that  without  some  particular  re- 
lational property  the  term  would  not  be  what  it  is.  Its 
"nature"  is  not  indifferent  to  the  relation. 

I  take  it  that  Dr.  Moore's  subtle  distinctions  and 
reservations  amount  to  that. 

Thus  to  the  complete  individual  King  Edward  it  is 
indifferent  whether  he  is  the  father  of  George  or  not, 
and  to  the  father  of  George  whether  he  is  or  is  not  the 
father  of  more  children.  But  it  will  not  be  indifferent 
to  him  whether  he  has  or  has  not  certain  relational 
properties,  characteristics  of  his  personality,  without 
which  he  could  not  be  King  Edward.  There  is  a  still 
more  precise  sense  in  which  Dr.  Moore  admits  that  a 
relational  property,  as  distinct  from  a  relation,  ''is 
grounded  in  the  nature  of  any  term  which  possesses  it.  ** 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  31 

"Namely  that,  in  the  case  of  every  such  property,  the  term  ia 
question  has  some  quality  without  which  it  could  not  have  had  the 
property.  In  other  words  that  the  relational  property  entails  some 
quality  in  the  term  thoug'h  no  quality  in  the  term  entails  the  rela- 
tional property."  * 

The  stickler  for  external  relations  might  reply  that 
you  have  no  business  to  consider  the  general  nature 
of  the  terms  outside  the  particular  relation,  King  Ed- 
ward as  he  exists,  say,  outside  his  fatherhood,  if  his 
fatherhood  is  the  question.  Within  a  given  relation 
the  relational  property  may  be  something  added  to 
the  terms  of  the  relation  and  thus  remain  outside  them 
as  much  as  the  relation  itself. 

What  is  to  be  said,  then,  of  logical  processes'?  Of 
thought's  functions?  The  new  realist  will  not  allow 
that  thought  relates.  Even  in  its  logical  functions  it 
does  not  relate.  The  judgment  in  each  premise  is  a 
statement  of  reality,  a  case  of  mere  reporting.  All 
processes  of  deduction  are  the  unravelling  of  implica- 
tions of  the  given  real ;  all  processes  of  induction  are 
discoveries  of  given  reals,  or  of  relations  that  obtain 
between  reals.  The  relation  of  a  conclusion  to  its 
premises  is  an  external  relation  of  external  conceptual 
entities,  particular  or  universal.  "To  be,"  is  not,  as 
Lotze  affirmed,  *Ho  be  in  relations";  relation  is  simply 
a  special  example  of  being,  as  definite  and  irreducibleM 
as  its  terms. 

Thus  new  realism  begins  in  atomistic  ontology  and 
ends  in  logical  atomism. 

It  will  be  seen  that,  on  any  realistic  scheme  of  the 
relation  between  knowing  and  the  thing  known,  the 
role  of  consciousness  and  the  subject  is  considerably  re- 
duced. Consciousness,  as  mere  knowing  or  aware- 
ness, has  no  content.  You  must  no  longer  talk  about 
states    of    consciousness.      Consciousness,    properly 

^External  and  Internal  Belations:     (Proceedings  of  the  Aristotelian 
Society.)     Vol.  XIX,  p.  40  et  seq. 


\ « 


32  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

talked  about,  has  no  states.  It  is  a  pure,  featureless 
transparency  let  down  between  subject  and  object,  and 
dividing  them,  if  it  can  be  said  to  divide  what  was  never 
joined  and  never  could  be  joined.  All  the  colour  and 
richness  and  movement  and  tumult  are  on  the  other 
side.  No  states  of  consciousness.  If  consciousness 
can  be  said  to  be  itself  a  state  of  the  subject,  it  is  a 
state  without  quality  or  identification  mark.  All  the 
identification  marks  are  on  the  other  side. 

To  be  sure  you  can,  and  do,  distinguish  between 
sensing,  perceiving,  remembering,  imagining,  reflect- 
ing, judging,  reasoning  believing  and  opining,  but  only 
(since  consciousness  has  no  content)  because  their  ob- 
jects are  different.  Of  course  we  can,  and  do,  reflect, 
judge,  reason,  have  beliefs  and  opinions  about  one  and 
the  same  thing,  or  about  one  and  the  same  thing  in 
different  relations ;  but  whether  in  any  given  instance 
we  reflect,  judge,  reason  or  have  an  opinion  or  a  belief 
will  depend  on  the  character  of  the  thing  and  its  re- 
lations, of  the  whole  block  before  consciousness,  and, 
above  all,  on  the  sufficiency  or  insufficiency  of  our  ex- 
perience at  the  time.  There  will,  of  course,  be  dif- 
ferences of  value  in  these  several  acts,  both  as  be- 
tween different  subjects  and  different  states  of  the  same 
subject  at  different  times.  Thus  some  people  judge 
better  and  reason  better  than  other  people,  and  bet- 
ter at  some  times  than  other  times;  but  these  differ- 
ences in  value  can  hardly  be  said  to  touch  the  essence 
of  these  affairs,  or  to  give  consciousness  a  content. 
And  even  when  you  have  admitted  that  there  is  a 
distinct  difference  of  type  between  reflecting,  judging, 
reasoning,  believing  and  opining,  and  between  the  vari- 
ous forms  of  judgment  and  reasoning,  and  that  they 
all  have  some  content  since  they  all  consist  of  proposi- 
tions, still  in  itself  this  content  is  featureless  and  col- 
ourless.   And  if  you  contend  that,  on  the  contrary, 


II  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  33 

propositions  have  subjects  and  that  these  subjects  have 
colour  and  feature,  still  that  colour  and  feature  are 
derived  from  the  objects  of  thinking  which  are  outside 
thought.  All  the  time  it  is  objects  making  a  difference 
to  consciousness,  not  consciousness  making  a  difference 
to  itself. 

Once  for  all,  whatever  it  happens  to  be  doing,  the 
relation  of  consciousness  to  its  object  is  purely,  to  use 
Professor  Alexander's  word,  a  relation  of  ''compres- 
ence."  And  the  essence  of  the  act — if  it  is  an  act — 
itself  is  ^'contemplation"  and  it  is  nothing  more.  And 
contemplation,  by  itself,  is  very  thin. 

Only  in  doubting,  believing,  expecting,  do  we  seem 
to  catch  an  authentic  gesture  of  the  self,  an  attitude. 
But  here  our  judgment  of  knowing  is  in  suspension 
and  that  suspension  is  due  to  the  uncertain  appear- 
ances of  the  object,  or  the  insufficiency  of  our  experi- 
ence, or  both. 

And  there  are  willing,  hoping  and  fearing,  desiring 
and  undesiring,  trusting  and  distrusting,  loving  and 
hating.  There  are  repugnance  and  disgust.  These  are 
all  indubitable  acts  or  states  of  the  self,  but  they  are  not 
knowings.  Their  content,  their  comparative  thickness, 
is  conferred  on  them  solely  by  their  grip  on  the  world 
said  to  be  external  to  consciousness.  They  all  have 
their  feeling  tone,  if  they  are  not  all  pure  feelings; 
even  willing,  which  is  obviously  not  feeling,  has  its 
feeling  tone.  And  that  is  a  physical  affair.  It  be- 
longs, palpably,  to  the  external  world  of  the  body. 

Loving,  at  first  sight,  would  seem  to  be  a  unique 
affection  of  the  self,  with  a  strong  objective  reference 
either  to  the  perceived  or  to  the  remembered  object 
(and  for  new  realists  these  two  are  one).  But  even 
when  you  have  recognised  that  passion  need  not  be 
entirely  or  even  mainly  sexual, — there  is  such  a  thing 
as  a  passion  for  pure  truth, — yet  qua  passion  it  remains 


34  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

very  mucli  a  matter  of  physical  vibrations  and  excite- 
ments ;  indeed,  even  in  its  most  immaterial  manif estar 
tions,  in  its  purity,  its  devotion,  its  abnegation,  its 
transcendence  of  its  own  delight,  its  utter  selflessness, 
love,  on  any  strict  realistic  theory  falls  to  the  world 
outside  consciousness.  Non-conscious  reality  bags  the 
lot.  My  experience  of  passion  is  my  compresence  with 
feeling-objects;  my  fulfilment  of  passion  is  my  com- 
presence with  certain  objective  events;  my  renuncia- 
tion of  passion  is  my  withdrawal  from  events  of  one 
order  in  favour  of  events  conceived  to  be  of  a  higher 
order.  On  the  realist  theory  both  concept  and  higher 
event  are  part  of  the  external  and  objective  world. 
Once  you  have  begun  drawing  the  line  between  con- 
sciousness and  the  objects  of  consciousness  I  do  not 
see  where  you  are  to  stop.  So  that  the  margin  of  con- 
sciousness and  of  the  self  is  the  narrowest  conceivable. 
Some  realists  surrender  to  it  very  handsomely  the 
whole  world  of  art  and  the  assthetic  emotions,^  but  I 
do  not  think  that  a  thorough-going,  consistent  realism 
allows  of  this  concession.  The  aesthetic  emotions  are 
not  on  a  more  subjective  plane  than  other  emotions 
(their  plane  is  if  anything  less  so) ;  and  strict  realism 
is  bound  to  regard  all  emotion  as  objective.  The  fin- 
ished product  of  art,  the  poem,  the  picture,  the  statue, 
the  opera,  is  eminently  objective,  a  real  outside  thing 
in  a  real  outside  world.  If  anything  could  make  it  more 
objective  than  other  objects  it  is  that  character  of  in- 
evitableness  and  universality  that  art  has  at  its  high- 
est ;  you  can  almost  think  of  one  art-form  as  more  real 
than  another  and  of  the  highest  art  as  the  most  real 
thing  there  is. 

^  Mr.  Kalph  Barton  Perry:   "A  Eealistic  Theory  of  Independence": 
U    The  New  Realism,  p.  141.    Mr.  Perry  also  concedes  "selection,"  "com- 
bination" and  "value."     He  holds  that  "Parts  of  consciousness,  a8 
such,  are  dependent  on  the  whole  of  consciousness ' '  and  ' '  reciprocally 
dependent  within  the  system."     (This  "only  in  a  limited  sense.") 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPAEATIONS  35 

You  have  of  course,  to  allow  for  the  work  of  the 
artist,  for  his  creative  will.  But  that  is  another  story. 
We  have  seen  how  the  new  realism  deals  with  creative 
imagination.  We  have  yet  to  see  how  the  creative  wiU 
fits  into  the  new  realist  scheme. 

Consciousness  then  is  contentless.  It  neither  gives 
l\nor  receives.  It  is  what  Professor  Alexander  calls  a 
*  *  compresence. ' '  To  quote  Professor  Alexander  again, 
it  ''contemplates"  and  it  "enjoys";  but  enjoyment 
would  seem  to  be  only  another  word  for  mere  aware- 
ness, it  doesn't  amount  to  realisation;  let  alone  that, 
applied  to  consciousness,  ''realisation"  is  a  double- 
edged  term  very  dangerous  to  realism.  Enough  that 
consciousness  has  no  content.  It  is  the  only  relation 
that  is  not  immediately  an  object,  though  it  may  be- 
come one  when  we  think  about  it.  In  either  case  it  is 
a  pure,  blank  transparency. 

At  least  this  extreme  conclusion  seems  to  me  to  fol- 
low from  a  consistent  realism.  Again,  it  is  only  fair 
to  add  that  it  is  not  allowed  even  by  so  devout  a  realist 
as  Professor  Whitehead. 

"Our  perception  of  natural  events  and  natural  objects  is  a  per- 
ception within  nature,  and  is  not  an  awareness  contemplating  all 
nature  impartially  from  without."  "...  natural  knowledge  is  a 
knowledge  from  within  nature,  a  knowledge  'here  within  nature'  and 
'now  within  nature',  and  is  an  awareness  of  the  natural  relations 
of  one  element  in  nature  (namely,  the  percipient  event)  to  the 
rest  of  nature." 
^.^  "The  conception  of  knowledge  as  passive  contemplation  is  too 
inadequate  to  meet  the  facts.  Nature  is  ever  originating  its  own 
development  and  the  sense  of  action  is  the  direct  knowledge  of  the 
percipient  event  as  having  its  very  being  in  the  formation  of  its 
natural  relations  .  .  .  perception  is  always  at  the  utmost  point 
of  creation."* 

Knowledge  then  goes  on  inside  nature ;  it  is  one  of 
nature's  events  among  others;  it  is  nature  appre-    \ 
bending  its  own  events,  recognising  its  own  objects. 

*  Enquiry  Concerning  The  Principles  of  Natural  Knowledge,  pp.  13,  14. 


36  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

"Objects  enter  into  experience  by  recognition,  and  without  recog- 
nition experience  would  divulge  no  objects.  Objects  convey  the 
permanences  recognised  in  events  and  are  recognised  as  self -identi- 
cal amid  different  circumstances."  * 

This  is  not  to  be  interpreted  idealistically.  The 
./being  of  the  object  is  not  to  be  recognised,  is  not  to  be 
perceived ;  neither  recognition  nor  perception  does  any- 
thing for  it  or  to  it;  the  object  is  simply  a  given  ele- 
ment, the  permanent  element  in  "the  flux  of  events." 
Neither  must  we  take  "recognition"  in  a  Platonic 
sense.  It  is  not  avanvijo-is ;  it  is  certainly  not  the  mind 's 
recognition  of  its  own  content.  But  the  object,  if  it 
is  to  count  as  an  object,  must  be  recognised,  known 
again,  through  all  its  recurrences,  for  what  it  is.  By 
its  recurrences,  its  comparative  permanence  amid  the 
passing  of  events  it  lends  itself  to  recognition  rather 
than  to  apprehension.  Contemplation  will  thus  be  a 
protracted  recognition.  Nature,  recognising,  makes  a 
perpetual  return  upon  herself. 

Seen  from  nature's  side,  consciousness  enriches  the 
cosmic  process  of  which  it  is  a  part;  but  seen  from  its 
own  side,  distinguished  from  objects  and  events,  for 
all  the  intimacy  and  warmth  of  its  includedness,  it 
remains  a  blank  transparency.  And  realists  have  every 
reason  for  insisting  that  it  must  and  can  be  and  is  so 
distinguished.  Do  away  with  the  distinction  and  you 
do  away  with  realism.  Press  realism  home,  and  noth- 
ing is  left  to  consciousness  but  its  "  compresence, "  its 
detached  and  limited  capacity  for  looking  on. 

iv 

The  great  merit  of  realism  is  that  it  does  distinguish, 
The  that  it  respects  the  integrity  of  being  and  puts  knowl- 
strength  ^dge  in  its  place,  that  it  makes  a  dangerous  and  fero- 
Reaiism  cious  stand  against  vagueness  and  loose  thinking;  that 

*  Enquiry,  p.  64. 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  37 

it  recalls  us  to  seriousness.  Realists  are  all  for  hard 
clearness ;  they  never  use  a  term  they  have  not  previ- 
ously defined.  They  revel  in  distinctions.  They  have 
tidied  up  with  a  thoroughness  unknown  before  in  phi- 
losophy. Thanks  to  the  work  of  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell 
and  Professor  Whitehead,  formal  logic  has  become  an 
instrument  of  almost  perfect  precision.  New  realism 
has  done  what  Vitalism  set  out  to  do ;  it  has  reconciled 
philosophy  with  science.  By  turning  the  stuff  of  con- 
sciousness out  of  doors  and  taking  things  at  their  face 
value  as  outside  reality,  for  the  moment  it  simplifies 
its  problem.  New  realists  have  apparently  steered 
clear  of  contradictions  and  dilemmas ;  at  any  rate  they 
have  avoided,  as  far  as  possible,  certain  well-known 
occasions  for  contradiction  and  dilemma.  Thus  they 
have  made  things  uncommonly  hard  for  any  idealist 
who  attempts  to  come  after  them.  They  have  set  phi- 
losophy in  a  clean  place;  and  whatever  else  it  does, 
idealism  really  cannot  be  allowed  to  mess  it  all  up 
again.  It  will  have  to  adopt  some,  at  least,  of  the  real- 
ists' distinctions  or  perish. 

The  idealist's  only  hope  is  to  go  further  on  this 
happy  path  and  distinguish  between  distinctions. 


For,  after  all,  the  new  realism  has  a  suicidal  subtlety.    , 
If  it  is  taken  literally — and  you  cannot  imagine  that  its  tions 
intention  is  to  be  taken  otherwise — it  ends  by  disin- 
tegrating the  world  in  thought. 

Thought,  that  realism  will  not  allow  to  build  up  even 
its  own  universe,  has  this  power  to  dismember  and 
pull  down.  Taken  literally,  realism  is  committed  to  '; 
the  doctrine  of  external  relations.  And  external  rela- 
tions,  taken  literally,  do  not  really  relate.  They  are 
cut  off  from  all  possibility  of  relating,  not  only  by  an 


38  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

endless  regress,  fatal  to  their  reality,  but  by  their  hard 
and  cruel  indifference  to  their  terms  at  the  start.  They 
are  only  contemplated  as  relating.  And  if  realities  are 
contemplated  as  doing  what  they  do  not  really  do,  then, 
contrary  to  the  first  principles  of  reahsm,  they  appear 
as  they  are  not  and  we  do  not  know  them  as  they  are. 

Nor  is  contradiction  altogether  avoided.  If  the  new 
realist  takes  exception  to  the  absolute  idealist's  Ab- 
solute on  the  grounds  that  it  is  related,  the  idealist  can 
object  to  the  realist's  relative  on  the  grounds  that  it  is 
absolute;  the  terms  of  his  relations  and  his  relations 
themselves  are,  in  the  hard  recalcitrance  of  their  re- 
ality, so  many  little  absolutes. 

Take,  for  example,  the  subject  and  its  predicates. 
The  new  realist  has  a  special  spite  against  this  innocent 
relation.  You  would  have  thought  that  if  ever  there 
was  a  dear  case  of  an  internal  relation,  securely 
''grounded  in  the  nature  of  its  terms,"  it  was  this. 
But  no;  the  same  predicates  are  related  to  different 
subjects  and  the  same  subjects  to  different  predicates, 
and  if  we  were  once  to  admit  that  all  these  relations 
were  internal  and  securely  attached  to  their  terms  we 
should  have  that  unity  in  difference  which  is  so  ab- 
horrent to  the  realist  with  his  pluralism. 

The  pluralistic  realist,  if  he  is  to  be  consistent,  can- 
not really  affirm  that  the  rose  ''is"  red  or  that  it  "is" 
coloured,  only  that  it  has  a  red  colour;  for,  if  terms 
have  reality  apart  from  their  relations,  then  the  red 
of  the  rose  and  the  red  of  the  pillar  box  will  be  the 
same  detached  reality,  and  he  will  be  affirming  that 
both  the  rose  and  the  pillar  box  are  it,  that  they  are, 
so  far,  the  same  thing.  He  can  only  save  himself  by 
greater  precision,  by  saying  that  the  rose  is  damask 
red  and  the  pillar  box  scarlet;  in  this  case  the  predi- 
cates have  turned  out  to  be  different,  after  all,  but  his 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  39 

trouble  is  only  postponed  till  the  moment  when  he 
comes  across  two  subjects  with  the  same  predicate.^ 
And  this  will  hold  good  of  all  the  quahties  of  a  thing. 

To  be  sure,  even  supposing  their  red  to  be  the  same 
red,  the  rose  and  the  Dillar  box  will  have  other  predi- 
cates that  you  might  think  would  distinguish  them  suffi- 
ciently; the  rose  has  a  smell  that  the  pillar  box  hasn't; 
they  have  different  shapes,  and  the  pillar  box  is  a  use- 
ful public  servant  in  government  employ,  which  the 
rose  is  not;  but  these  differences  will  not  avail  them 
anything,  for  they  are  all  the  predicates  of  other  sub- 
jects, too.  The  pillar  box  in  RusseU  Square  is  not  the 
only  public  servant  in  government  employ;  it  is  not 
even  the  only  pillar  box,  and  my  sealing  wax  has  its  col- 
our and  my  studio  stove  its  shape ;  and  again,  the  differ- 
ences between  my  stove  and  the  pillar  box  are  the 
predicates  of  other  subjects.  The  attachment  of  predi- 
cates to  subjects  is  the  only  thing  in  the  realists'  world 
that  would  appear  not  to  be  absolute. 

But  mark  what  follows  if  the  relation  between  the 
thing  and  its  qualities  be  not  grounded  in  the  nature  of 
its  terms.  We  cannot  in  this  case  break  the  thing  up 
into  its  qualities,  we  cannot  take  it  as  the  sum  of  them, 
or  as  the  relation  itself,  for  the  relation  is  outside  the 
thing  and  the  qualities;  therefore  the  thing  and  its 
qualities  fall  apart,  and  we  have  the  thing-in-itself  all 
over  again,  that  thing-in-itself  whose  existence  new 
realism  strenuously  denies.  Whatever  else  relations 
may  do,  they  do  not  relate.  The  universe  is  a  collec- 
tion, an  assemblage  of  entities  hard  and  recalcitrant 
as  atoms.  It  is  not  even  a  collection  or  an  assemblage 
since  that  implies  a  relation  that  relates.  These  en- 
tities are  not  even  just  ''one  damned  thing  after  an- 
other," as  their  sequence  would  constitute  a  relation 

*0f  course  they  never  will  have  the  numerically  same  "real"  quality, 
but  neither  will  they  on  the  idealist  hypothesis. 


40  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

that  relates.  They  are,  in  their  ultimate  analysis,  irre- 
ducible atoms,  repugnant  to  all  relations.  But  as  the 
universe  certainly  presents  the  semblance  of  related- 
ness,  the  new  realist  is  landed  in  the  very  last  place 
where  he  would  wish  to  be,  in  a  world  of  appearances, 
supported  or  apparently  supported  by  a  vast  number 
of  things-in-themselves  distinguished  only  by  those 
positions  in  space  and  time  which  constitute  their  nu- 
merical identity. 

I  do  not  see  how,  on  any  thorough-going  theory  of 
external  relations,  he  can  avoid  this  catastrophe. 

And  when  you  come  to  the  subject-object  relation 
the  consequences  are  tremendous.  Here  if  anywhere, 
the  relation  must  be  strictly  external  if  realism  is  to 
stand.  That  is  to  say,  if  you  take  the  subject  and  ob- 
ject as  your  terms  and  knowing  as  your  relation,  know- 
ing will  not  be  grounded  in  the  nature  of  either  subject 
or  object;  subject  and  object  alike  will  make  no  differ- 
ence to  knowing ;  though,  if  we  take  Dr.  Moore 's  reser- 
vation into  account,^  knowing  may  make  a  difference  to 
the  terms.  It  may  make  a  difference  to  the  object,  then, 
as  well  as  to  the  subject.  But  this  is  just  what  cannot 
happen  on  a  realist  hypothesis;  so  that  Dr.  Moore's 
reservation,  which  rested  on  the  distinction  between 
relations  and  relational  properties,  cannot  in  this  case 
apply.  Subject,  object  and  the  relation  of  knowing  will 
^'  be  three  hard,  distinct,  mutually  repellent  entities,  and 
it  is  hard  to  see  how,  on  the  new  realist  theory,  they 
ever  could  have  contrived  to  come  together.  Nor  are 
you  a  bit  better  off  if  you  take  the  form  of  this  relation 
to  be:  the  subject's  knowing-of-the-object,  or  (re- 
duced to  the  simplest  possible  terms)  contemplation- 
of-object,  when,  whatever  mysterious  relation  "of" 
may  be  it  is  equally  indifferent  to  "contemplation"  or 
to  "object." 

^See  above:  pp.  29-31. 


II  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  41 

On  the  other  hand,  once  recognise  that  terms  are 
sympathetic  to  their  relations,  once  admit  that  it  does 
make  a  difference  to  the  object  to  be  known  and  to  the 
subject  to  know,  and  you  have  let  in  the  thin  end  of  the 
idealist's  wedge.    If  knowing  is  not  grounded  in  the 
''nature"  of  the  object,  it  will  at  least  be  grounded 
in  a  "relational  property"  of  the  object.     And  this 
can  only  mean  that  there  is  something  in  the  object 
by  reason  of  which  it  is  known;  it  has  a  side  by  which 
kno\\nng  takes  it.    But  this  relational  property,  so  far 
from  being  the  only  property  of  the  object  which  is 
known,  is  precisely  that  property  which  is  not  known, 
since  it  is  impossible  to  mark  down  the  property  in 
question  and  say  it  is  this  rather  than  that.    And  sup- 
posing all  the  properties  of  the  object  to  be  known 
except  this  one  property  which  makes  it  known,  each 
of  those  properties  will  have  its  own  relational  prop- 
erty which  makes  it  known,  so  that  we  cannot  think  of 
this  particular  relational  property  as  being  one  prop- 
erty of  the  object  among  others,  but  as   something 
pertaining  to  or  inherent  in  the  object  as  a  whole  mid 
in  each  one  of  its  properties,  and  that  is  as  good  as 
saying  we  cannot  think  of  it  as  a  property  at  all, 
but  as  a  relation  grounded  in  the  nature  of  its  terms, 
which  brings  us  straight  to  the  idealist  position  that 
the  nature  of  known  things  is  to  be  known;  in  other 
words  that  being  known  makes  a  difference  to  things. 
Or  you  may  knock  out  the  term  "nature,"  as  intro- 
ducing an  mmecessary  complication,  and  say  simply: 
the  relation  is  grounded  in  the  object,  and  the  being 
of  objects  is  to  be  known. 

But  modify  the  position  in  the  interests  of  realism 
and  say :  Things  are,  and  are  such  that  they  are  known, 
draw  a  hard  and  fast  line  between  the  "are"  and 
the  "are  such,"  and  you  are  landed,  again,  with  an 
unknown  thing-in-itself.     Carry  on  the  process  with 


42  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

each  of  the  are-suchnesses,  and  distinguish  between 
their  being  and  their  suchness,  and  you  are  only  mul- 
tiplying things-in-themselves  within  things. 

You  can  only  avoid  the  conclusion  by  regarding  con- 
sciousness as  an  empty  transparency;  and  you  are 
then  faced  with  a  difficulty.  If  consciousness  is  an 
empty  transparency  that  makes  no  difference  to  its 
objects,  its  objects,  presumably,  must  make  a  difference 
to  it.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  anything  can  make 
a  difference  to  an  empty  transparency.  Either  objects 
are  the  content  of  consciousness  or  they  are  not.  If 
they  are  they  cannot  be  said  to  be  either  outside  or  in- 
dependent of  consciousness.  If  they  are  not,  conscious- 
ness remains  an  empty,  meaningless  transparency. 
Meaningless,  because  if  it  had  meaning,  its  meaning 
must  profoundly  modify  its  objects.  And  if  you  con- 
tend that  objects  themselves  have  meaning  you  must 
either  distinguish  between  the  meaning  and  the  ob- 
jects or  not  distinguish.  If  you  do  not  distinguish  you 
have  no  business  to  talk  about  meaning  at  aU.  (If 
meaning  is  to  have  any  meaning  it  must  be  distingnish- 
able.) 

If  you  then  say,  distinguishing,  that  objects  have 
meaning  for  consciousness  which  they  have  not  apart 
from  it,  you  are  again  admitting  that  consciousness 
makes  a  difference  to  objects;  consciousness  will  in- 
vade them  at  all  points  of  meaning.  If  you  simply  say 
that  consciousness  adds  its  own  meaning  to  the  object 
you  are  again  carrying  consciousness  over  into  the  ob- 
jective world. 

But  the  crucial  discrepancies  are  those  which  involve 
space  and  time.  Even  Mr.  Bertrand  Eussell  admits  a 
difficulty  here. 

"It  is  said,  not  ■wholly  without  plausibility,  that  these  different 
shapes  and  different  colours  cannot  co-exist  simultaneously  in  the 
same  place,  and  cannot  therefore  both  be  constituents  of  the  physical 


n  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  43 

world.     This  argument  I  must  confess  appeared  to  me  until  re- 
cently to  be  irrefutable."  * 

He  gets  over  it  by  referring  the  discrepant  appear- 
ances to  different  spaces.  Not  that  they  have  a  per- 
manent and  independent  existence  there. 

"Sense-data  .  .  .  probably  never  persist  unchanged  after  ceasing 
to  be  sense-data."  * 

That  is  to  say,  after  ceasing  to  be  perceived.  Their 
dependence,  however,  is  not  on  the  mind.  The  sub- 
jectivity they  suggest  is  *' physiological  subjectivity, 
i.  e.  causal  dependence  on  the  sense-organs,  nerves  or 
brain." 

But  physiological  subjectivity,  though  compatible 
with  pious  realism,  is  no  better  than  any  other.  Com- 
bined with  the  theory  of  ''real"  private  spaces,  it  has 
difficulties  of  its  own. 

For  example:  You  and  I  are  sitting  in  two  op-u 
posite  chairs.  Naively,  one  would  suppose  that  the  part 
of  space  from  which  you  see  me  is  the  part  of  space  at 
which  I  see  you.  On  Mr.  Russell's  theory  they  belong 
to  different  and  private  spaces  which  are  not  "mental." 
What  really  happens  when  we  exchange  chairs? 
Naively,  one  would  suppose  that  our  bodies,  on  which 
the  appearances  in  each  private  space  depend,  have 
transferred  themselves  to  each  other's  private  spaces, 
which  is  absurd.  Clearly,  each  body  has  changed  its 
place  within  its  own  private  space.  But  the  chairs  have 
not  changed  places.  Clearly,  then,  we  do  not  see  the 
same  chairs.  The  chair  that  you  are  now  sitting  on  is 
not  the  same  chair  I  was  sitting  on  a  moment  ago. 
There  will  be  as  many  chairs  and  as  many  rooms  as 
there  are  inhabitants  of  a  room. 

Now  the  idealist  is  equally  committed  to  this  multi- 
tude of  chairs  and  rooms,  though  not  of  physiological 

^Sense-Data  and  Physics  (Logic  and  Mysticism),  p.  153. 
*The  same,  p.  151. 


44  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

chairs  and  rooms.  He  is,  therefore,  not  entitled  to 
complain  of  the  multiplicity.  But  he  is  entitled  to  ask : 
If  the  chairs  are  private  because  physiological,  how 
about  the  private  spaces?  Space  cannot  be  physio- 
logical. Yet  if  space  is  private  it  must  be  subjective 
in  another  sense ;  it  must  be  somehow  personal.  There- 
fore it  cannot  be  physical.  And  if  it  isn't  physiological 
it  must  be  mental. 

The  idealist  can  object  with  reason  to  the  physio- 
logical relation.  It  is  a  subversion  of  the  real  rela- 
tion of  dependence.  For  private  space  is  part  of  one 
all-embracing  perspective  space.  The  place  my  body 
occupies  at  any  given  time  is  part  of  my  private  space. 
How,  then,  can  the  change  in  my  body  account  for  the 
existence  of  the  whole  spatial  show  of  my  private  world 
on  which  its  existence  is  dependent?  It  is  one  complex 
of  my  sense-data,  how  can  it  account  for  the  whole  sys- 
tem of  my  sense-data  which  contains  it?  My  body 
occupies  space  which,  however  private,  is  still  a  part 
of  perspective  space,  in  a  relation  such  that  if  there 
were  no  perspective  space  there  would  be  no  private 
spaces.  How  can  it  account  for  sense-data  conditioned 
by  the  space  it  pre-supposes  ?  It  is  itself  such  a  sense- 
datum. 

Further,  its  changes  pre-suppose  and  depend  on  the 
whole  system  of  physics,  which  in  its  turn  pre-sup- 
poses and  is  determined  by  the  whole  system  of  the  one 
all-embracing  space  and  the  one  all-embracing  time, 
in  the  sense  that  all  objects  of  physics  are  objects  in 
space  and  time.  Mr.  Kussell  says  that  if  my  body  were 
not  there  the  whole  show  perceived  in  my  private  space 
would  not  be  there:  whereas,  clearly,  if  my  private 
space  were  not  there  my  body  would  not  be  there 
either. 

The  idealist  avoids  this  awkwardness  by  packing 
my  body  and  my  private  space  into  my  mind  and  re- 


II  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  45 

ferring  all  the  causality  there  is  in  the  affair  to  an  ulti- 
mate consciousness  which  contains  all  space  and  all 
time. 

If,  on  the  contrary,  you  say  that  meaning,  distin- 
guished and  yet  inseparable  from  the  objects  that 
"have"  it,  is  part  of  the  outside  pattern  of  the  uni- 
verse, then,  once  more,  consciousness  is  a  meaningless 
transparency,  with  all  the  awkwardnesses  that  attach 
to  a  meaningless  transparency. 

I  shall  not  insist  on  the  difficulty  of  discriminating 
between  subjective  and  objective  sensory  affections, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  new  realism  does  not  admit 
the  distinction.  Since  the  new  realist  regards  sound 
and  colour,  heat  and  cold,  pain  and  fatigue  as  outside 
objects,  equally  independent  of  sensation,  it  is  useless 
to  call  his  attention  ^  to  their  habit  of  merging  into  each 
other,  as  if  this  made  any  difference  to  their  status. 
I  will  only  point  out  that  new  realism  leaves  no  room 
on  the  hair-line  margin  of  consciousness  for  any  sub- 
jective affections  at  all,  as  long  as  you  profess  to 
distinguish  between  affection  and  consciousness  of  af- 
fection. The  whole  world  of  the  self,  beyond  its  blank 
on-looking,  has  been  hauled  over  to  the  outside. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that  the  main  charge 
brought  by  realism  against  idealism  is  that  in  its  sub- 
jective form  it  annihilates  the  cosmos  known  to  have 
existed  before  consciousness,  while  its  absolute  form 
is  equally  fatal  to  the  appearances  of  that  cosmos,  its 
sounds,  colours,  smells  and  densities;  appearances 
which  realism  affirms  to  be  realities. ^ 

But  on  the  realist  theory  appearances  are  equally 
bound  to  disappear,  not  because  of  the  absence  of  sen- 

^  See  A  Defence  of  Idealism,  pp.  248-250. 

'Not  every  realist  affirms  it.  I  am  a  little  doubtful  as  to  Professor 
Broad's  position,  for  example.  At  one  point  in  his  ar^ment  he  takes 
all  the  secondary  and  some  primary  qualities  to  be  "  appearances. ' '  But 
if  I  understand  him  aright,  he  reinstates  them  as  realities  through  their 
correlations  with  touch.     (See  III,  pp.  71-78.) 


46  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

sation,  but  because  of  the  absence  of  sense-organs.  The 
''fulgurating"  sensa  are  the  result  of  change  in  the 
cerebral  cortex  set  up  by  the  contact  of  matter  in  mo- 
tion with  the  appropriate  sense-organs  which  pass  on 
their  shock.  No  sense-organs,  no  fulgurations.  No 
heat  of  sun,  no  cold  of  glaciers;  no  thunder  of  surf 
on  palaeozoic  beaches ;  no  green  of  grass  and  leaves  in 
palaeozoic  forests.  No  wet,  no  dry.  No  light,  no  dark- 
ness. No  distinction  between  sea  and  land  or  night  and 
day.  The  ''sensibles"  simply  go  trying  to  pass  on 
their  shocks,  without  anybody  there  to  be  shocked. 

Of  course  if  it  was  so,  it  was  so;  it  can't  be  helped, 
and  if  we  don't  like  it  we  must  stand  it;  but  the  new 
realist  should  be  the  last  to  raise  a  cry  against  the 
idealist  on  behalf  of  the  solar  system  and  palaeozoic 
earth.  There  is  only  one  hope  for  them,  and  that  is 
the  idealist's  assumption  of  an  enduring,  super-cosmio 
spirit  in  whose  consciousness  they  have  still  endured. 

For,  consider  the  nature  of  the  transaction.  We  are 
to  suppose  that  neural  change  in  my  private  and  per- 
sonal body  is  the  spark  that  fires  the  fulguration  of 
the  sensa,  that  makes  the  cosmos  with  its  system  of 
sensibles  burst  forth  in  colour  and  sound  and  touch  and 
taste  and  smell.  The  visible,  audible,  palpable  and 
smellable  properties  of  the  world  are  thus  the  offspring 
of  changes  in  my  body  which  is  itself  the  offspring  of 
that  world ;  that  is  to  say,  we  have  changes  in  the  sub- 
sequently existing  part,  an  organism  narrowly  limited 
in  space  and  time,  giving  rise  to  extended  aspects  of 
the  previously  existing  whole.  Inconceivable  when  we 
consider  that  the  neural  motions  involved  are  them- 
selves continuations  of  the  motions  of  the  larger  world. 
Inconceivable  if  we  assume  the  absolute,  outside  reality 
of  the  body  and  its  world.  And  whether  ' '  contempla- 
tion" occur  inside  or  outside  nature — inconceivable 


11  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  47 

reality's  final  leap  from  the  unconscious  to  conscious- 
ness. 

Not  inconceivable  if  the  whole  system  of  events  oc- 
curs through  and  in  a  consciousness  presumed  to  be 
adequate  to  the  display.  The  hypothesis  may  not  be 
capable  of  downright  a  posteriori  proof.  But  at  any 
rate  physiological  subjectivism  raises  more  problems 
than  idealism  leaves  unsolved. 

And  to  be  serious  with  the  new  realist  theory  of  mem- 
ory and  imagination  is  to  be  landed  in  difficulties  even 
less  remote. 

For,  consider  once  more  Professor  Laird's  Mr. 
Smith  and  his  Matterhorn.  The  Matterhom  is  an  ab- 
solute, outside,  independent  reality  in  an  absolute, 
outside,  independent  space  and  time:  independent  in 
the  sense  that  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  either  an 
absolute  consciousness  or  with  Smith  and  his  con- 
sciousness, except  in  so  far  as  Smith  contemplates  the 
Matterhorn  and  his  ascent  of  it.  Consider  that,  though 
Smith  may  not  remember  every  detail  of  the  Matter- 
hom and  his  ascent,  yet  as  much  as  he  does  remember 
is  literally  so  much  of  the  Matterhorn  and  of  his  ascent. 
In  memory  Smith  is  contemplating  the  Matterhom 
itself  as  it  existed  when  he  climbed  it.  He  is,  then,  con- 
templating an  existence  which  has  a  real,  definite,  un- 
alterable position  in  space  and  time,  an  existence 
immensely  far  removed  from  Smith  and  his  present 
moment,  and  the  smoke-room  at  Surbiton  where  he  does 
his  remembering.  But  we  are  asked  to  believe  that 
Smith  sees  the  real  Matterhorn,  the  Matterhorn  itself, 
in  a  space  somewhere  between  his  arm-chair  and  the 
smoke-room  door,  where,  in  fact,  Smith's  bureau  is 
standing.  Ten  to  one  that  is  where  Smith,  seated  in 
his  armchair,  will  locate  his  Matterhorn.  He  may,  per- 
haps, remembering  his  geography,  give  his  mind's  eye 
a  south-eastward  turn ;  but  that  only  brings  the  Matter- 


48  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  n 

horn  across  the  top  pane  of  Smith's  bow  window;  at 
the  farthest  stretch  Smith  will  see  it  hovering  about 
outside  on  his  lawn  above  the  pampas  grass. 

Useless  to  say  that  time  divides  these  spaces.  Time 
only  makes  the  queer  business  queerer.  Besides  the 
marvel  of  this  immensely  distant  "real"  mountain 
disporting  itself  within  a  few  feet  of  Smith's  armchair, 
you  have  its  past  telescoping  into  Smith's  present.  Im- 
possible to  believe  that  the  Matterhom  Smith  remem- 
bers is  the  Matterhom  itself  when  it  is  behaving  so  un- 
like itself.  And  Smith  can  play  tricks  with  the  Matter- 
hom of  his  memory  that  he  could  never  play  with  the 
Matterhom  of  his  perception.  He  can  tear  it  from  its 
base  in  Switzerland  and  plump  it  down  in  Venice  in  the 
middle  of  the  Grand  Canal;  he  can  plant  St.  Sofia  on 
the  top  of  it.  That  he  can  only  do  these  things  with 
the  visible  Matterhom  does  not — since  he  is  dealing 
with  the  Matterhom  itself — ^make  his  performance 
essentially  less  remarkable.  And  though  you  may  say 
that  it  is  Smith's  imagination  and  not  his  memory  that 
is  now  at  work,  it  is  Smith's  memory  that  provides  his 
imagination  with  its  material,  which  is,  again,  the 
Matterhom  itseK. 

There  is,  I  believe,  a  way  in  which  Smith  can  do  all 
these  things,  a  way  in  which  he  can  both  remember  and 
imagine  the  Matterhom  itself,  without  the  intervention 
of  a  single  "image;"  but  it  is  not  the  way  of  realism 
which  supposes  the  Matterhom  to  exist  in  absolute 
space  and  time  outside  and  independent,  not  only  of 
Smith's  contemplating  mind,  but  of  all  the  conscious- 
ness in  the  universe. 


ill 

SOME  EEALIST  THEORIES  OF  PERCEPTION 


When  realists  like  Professor  Laird  say  they  believe 

that  realism  is  true  because  it  looks  as  if  it  were,  it  p^^^ 

isn't  very  easy  to  refute  them;  you  can  only  invite  fessor 

them  to  prove  that  realism  is  what  it  looks.   When  they  a^J  the 

add  that  all  the  bad  arguments  are  on  the  other  side,  5'®^. 

°  ,  Counter- 

that  is  a  definite  challenge  which  the  idealist  should  part 

not  be  afraid  to  accept. 

Some  realists,  like  Mr.  Edwin  Holt,  make  statements 
as  against  idealists  which  no  idealist  would  think  of 
disputing ;  as,  for  example,  that  dreams  and  hallucina- 
tions in  their  own  context  have  a  reality  of  their  own 
as  cogent  as  any  other.  And  the  realist  who  asserts 
that  dreams  and  hallucinations  and  memories  and  con- 
cepts and  secondary  qualities  and  primary  qualities 
are  all  equally  real,  is  difficult  to  refute.  He  is  a  dog- 
matist disguised  as  an  empiricist;  nearly  all  of  the 
American  '' Symposium  of  Six,"  with  the  exception 
of  Professor  W.  P.  Montague,  are  camouflaged  dog- 
matists and  difficult  to  refute.  And  if  any  realist  has 
the  wild  consistency  to  maintain  that  every  single  ob- 
ject of  consciousness  exists  independently  of  conscious- 
ness he  will  be  harder  to  refute  than  any  of  them.  With 
each  added  extravagance  the  realist's  position  becomes 
more  inaccessible  to  direct  attack.  You  can  only  chal- 
lenge him  to  produce  his  proofs. 

Therefore  it  is  refreshing  to  find  a  realist  like  Pro- 
fessor Broad  who  has  some  caution  and  an  inkling  of 

49 


50  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

the  hardships  and  dangers  of  his  position.  If  his  the- 
ory proves,  after  all,  to  be  vulnerable  this  is  partly  be- 
cause it  is  so  highly  correlated,  has  so  many  approaches 
and  attachments,  and  partly  because,  out  of  sheer  hon- 
esty, he  concedes  so  many  points  to  his  opponent. 
Unlike  some  of  his  fellow  realists  he  is  very  far  from 
regarding  realism  as  self-evident,  or  even  as  the  handi- 
est theory  there  is.  He  is  intensely  aware  of  its  diffi- 
culties, and  with  a  sincerity  no  less  brilliant  than  his 
amazing  perspicacity  he  does  not  hesitate  to  state  them. 
His  argument  is  one  long  experiment  in  arguments; 
and  he  seems  to  be  always  engaged  either  in  setting  up 
some  revised  form  of  a  theory  he  has  just  knocked 
down,  knocking  down  some  provisional  theory  he  has 
just  set  up,  or  reinstating  it  with  suitable  modifica- 
tions. Owing  to  the  swiftness  and  dexterity  of  his 
movements  it  isn't  always  easy  for  anybody  less 
nimble-witted  to  keep  up  with  him ;  he  seems  to  be  per- 
petually doubhng  and  turning  on  his  own  argument; 
but  in  the  end  it  is  clear  that  he  is  only  pushing  it  back 
and  back  to  the  apparently  impregnable  position  where 
it  makes  its  final  stand.  This  sounds  as  if  Professor 
Broad  were  the  enemy  of  his  own  argument;  it  only 
means  that  his  is  a  strategic  retreat  that  brings  him  by 
the  safest  way  to  his  impregnable  position. 

Still,  for  reasons  which  I  shall  try  to  make  clear,  I 
think  this  final  position  is  not  really  so  impregnable 
as  it  looks.  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  are  obvious 
reasons  which  will  occur  to  every  careful  reader  of 
Professor  Broad's  book;  but  they  are  so  vital  to  my 
own  argument  that  I  cannot  afford  to  leave  them  out 
just  because  somebody  has  probably  thought  of  them 
before,  and,  no  less  probably,  expressed  them  better. 

We  shall  presently  see  that  it  is  on  the  character  of 
tactual  perception  that  he  makes  his  stand.  It  would  be 
taking  a  most  unfair  advantage  of  his  various  very 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PEEPARATIONS  51 

handsome  admissions  to  say  that  the  entire  system  of 
realism  stands  or  falls  by  it;  but  it  is  clear  that  he 
regards  the  sense  of  touch  as  of  the  first  importance  in 
the  realistic  theory  of  perception,  and  it  is  by  its  theory 
of  perception  that  realism  stands  or  falls. 

He  criticises  in  turn  the  non-causal  arguments  for 
naif  realism;  the  arguments  for  Phenomenalism;  for 
the  ''Instrumental,"  the  "Causal,"  and  the  "Scien- 
tific" theories  of  perception.  He  finds  that  there  is 
much  to  be  said  for  naif  realism  "...  none  of  these 
arguments  which  are  so  confidently  repeated  by  phi- 
losophers really  give  conclusive  reasons  for  dropping 
even  the  crudest  kind  of  realism."  (He,  however,  de- 
velops other  reasons  for  dropping  it  with  which  no 
idealist  would  quarrel.)  He  rejects  Phenomenalism 
on  the  ground  that  its  conclusions  defeat  its  own  pre- 
mises, and  ends  by  adopting  the  "instrumental"  theory 
of  perception  for  one  set  of  perceptions,  namely  touch, 
while  rejecting  it  for  others  on  the  grounds  that  (a) 
it  multiplies  reals,  (h)  it  conflicts  with  the  causal  and 
scientific  theories. 

There  remain  the  causal  and  scientific  theories,  to 
both  of  which  with  certain  reservations  Professor 
Broad  inclines. 

He  starts  the  long  series  of  arguments  with  assum- 
ing "the  distinction  between  a  perception  and  its  ob- 
ject which  idealists  so  frequently  ignore,"  while  he 
admits  that  not  "all  arguments  for  Idealism  rest  on 
this  confusion."  And  he  defines  the  object  of  percep- 
tion comprehensively  and  non-controversially  as  ' '  any- 
thing that  may  be  perceived  regardless  of  the  question 
whether  it  can  exist  if  it  be  not  perceived. "  ^  So  far, 
so  good. 

"With  Dr.  Moore  he  insists  on  "the  truism  that  when 
you  perceive  you  perceive  something,  and  that  what 

*  Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  7. 


52  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

you  perceive  cannot  be  the  same  as  the  perception  of 
it."i 

Now  '' cannot"  is  a  highly  controversial  word.  If 
we  are  simply  taking  perception  in  its  innocency  as 
the  primary  block  of  consciousness  before  superaware- 
ness,  judgment  and  reflection  have  got  to  work  on  it, 
''cannot"  is  the  whole  subject  in  dispute ;  it  is  what  the 
realist  has  got  to  prove;  and  we  shall  find  that  even 
on  Professor  Broad's  own  showing,  "need  not"  is  the 
most  that  can  be  asserted  as  probable.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  perception  we  are  to  understand,  not  what 
I  have  called  the  primary  block  of  consciousness,  but 
that  secondary  and  supervening  state  in  which  we  per- 
ceive that  we  are  perceiving,  then  every  idealist  would 
admit  that  perception  in  this  sense  and  the  content  of 
primary  perception  are  not  the  same  thing,  and  as  far 
as  he  is  concerned  the  question  falls. 

But  even  if  realists  would  consent  to  recognise  the 
distinction  as  vital  to  the  problem  at  all,  they  would 
not  allow  that  it  is  perception  in  this  sense  which  is 
under  discussion;  and  I  submit  that  they  have  yet  to 
prove  that  perception  in  their  sense  and  what  they  call 
the  object  of  perception  (and  I  should  call  the  content 
of  the  primary  block  of  consciousness)  "cannot"  be 
the  same  thing — in  the  sense  that  the  object  (or  the 
content)  can  exist  when  it  is  not  perceived.  We  must 
not  assume  all  these  exciting  matters  at  the  start. ^ 

But  let  that  pass.  We  shall  see  that  Professor  Broad 
is  not  extravagant ;  and  that  in  the  long  run  he  offers 
us,  not  proof,  which  in  the  nature  of  the  case  cannot  be, 
but  a  high  degree  of  probability. 

To  begin  with,  he  examines  the  various  objections 
to  nai'f  realism  under  the  heads  of  ' '  Synthetic  Incom- 
patibility" in  the  evidence  of  the  senses,  either  of  one 

^  Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  5. 

*  Of  course,  by  * '  perception  in  their  sense ' '  I  mean  what  I  should 
call  primary,  and  not  secondary  awareness. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  53 

person  or  of  different  persons ;  relativity  to  the  organs 
of  perception  and  to  states  and  positions  of  the  organ- 
ism; the  arguments  from  dreams  and  hallucinations 
and  from  the  confusion  of  sense  perceptions  with  feel- 
ings. He  contends  that  the  celebrated  tests  which  its 
opponents  apply  to  naif  realism  either  do  not  apply 
or  prove  nothing  against  it  when  they  do. 

There  are,  as  we  all  know,  the  temperature  test,  and 
the  colour  test.  You  put  one  hand  in  hot  water  and  one 
in  cold,  and  afterwards  both  in  lukewarm  water  which 
will  then  feel  hot  to  the  cooled  hand  and  cold  to  the 
heated  one.  The  colour  test  supposes  that,  say,  a  red 
and  a  blue  surface  are  in  contact,  and  that  at  the  points 
of  contact  red  and  blue  will  co-exist  in  the  sense  that 
they  will  both  occupy  the  same  points.  Professor 
Broad  dismisses  the  temperature  test  on  the  grounds 
that  (a)  it  does  not  disprove  the  existence  of  some  tem- 
perature, and  (b)  that  the  two  temperatures  need  not 
be  thought  of  as  occupying  the  same  points.  The  colour 
test  goes,  too,  because,  either  contact  does  not  really 
exist,  in  which  case  the  colours  will  remain  distinct, 
or,  if  it  exists  the  colours  will  modify  each  other  and 
there  will  still  be  some  colour,  just  as  there  was  some 
temperature. 

Now  the  trouble  with  these  tests  is  that  we  really 
cannot  be  sure,  in  the  case  of  the  water,  that  the  two 
temperatures  are  not  co-existing  at  the  same  points 
when  the  two  hands  displace  so  considerable  a  volume 
of  water,  and  in  the  case  of  the  coloured  surfaces  that 
different  coloured  bodies  are  not  occupying  the  same 
space,  contrary  to  all  that  we  know  of  the  behaviour 
of  bodies.  And  in  any  case  the  two  tests  do  not  run 
on  all  fours.  A  test  more  analogous  to  the  water  ex- 
periment would  be  that  of  the  modification  of  one  col- 
our by  another  that  the  eyes  have  been  looking  at  a 
long  time.    A  "real"  independent  body  cannot  be  one 


54  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

colour  one  instant  and  another  the  next  in  the  absence 
of  any  change  in  the  actual  pigments,  owing  to  light  or 
chemical  action  or  any  other  external  cause.  As  for 
the  common  sense  view  that  "it  is  no  matter  that  differ- 
ent colours  should  co-exist  at  the  same  point  of  space, 
so  long  as  they  are  the  colours  of  different  bodies,"  it  is 
obvious  that  it  makes  a  bad  business  worse.  This  is 
also  the  view  of  naif  realism  which  will  swallow  any 
trifling  difficulty  of  this  sort  rather  than  admit  that 
colours  and  temperatures  may  not  be  ^ '  real. ' '  Needless 
to  say  Professor  Broad  does  not  adopt  it  even  in  the 
interests  of  naif  realism. 

In  dealing  with  ''synthetic  incompatibility"  of  the 
deliverances  of  two  senses  in  one  person,  that  is  to  say, 
of  sight  and  touch,  he  dismisses  provisionally  the  typi- 
cal test  of  the  painted  cube  in  perspective  on  the 
grounds  that,  ''as  far  as  perception  goes,"  the  object 
visually  perceived  and  the  object  tactually  perceived 
are  numerically  different.  Between  two  different  ob- 
jects there  can  be  no  synthetic  incompatibility.  The 
problem  is,  however,  complicated  by  the  spatial  rela- 
tions of  these  objects.    Professor  Broad  is 

"not  at  all  confident  that  the  extension  and  figure  and  relations 
analysed  from  objects  of  tactual  extension  can  at  once  be  identified 
with  those  that  are  analysed  from  visually  perceived  objects.  What 
seems  to  be  more  true  is  that  in  visual  extension  we  can  analyse 
out  elements  and  relations  which  form  a  spatial  order  of  the  same 
type  as  that  which  we  find  on  reflection  to  be  constituted  by  the 
relations  and  elements  that  we  can  analyse  out  of  the  objects  of 
visual  perception.  We  do  not  perceive  an  elaborate  spatial  order, 
but  when  we  come  to  analyse  and  reflect  upon  what  we  perceive 
by  sight  and  by  touch  we  are  led  to  construct  spatial  orders  of  the 
same  type"  .  .  .  "there  are  not  two  similar  orders  left  stand- 
ing side  by  side  but  one  which  is  supposed  to  include  both.  It 
must  be  noted  that  when  I  talk  of  'constructing'  a  spatial  order 
I  do  not  hold,  as  so  many  people  seem  to  do,  that  this  implies  that 
the  order  so  reached  cannot  be  that  of  the  real  world."  * 

On  the  contrary  we  shall  find  that  it  is  just  from  our 
ability  to  construct  this  common  spatial  order  that 

^Perception,  Physios  arid  Beality,  p.  29. 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  55 

realism  argues  to  the  reality  of  the  real  world ;  and  we 
shall  have  to  enquire  how  far  and  in  what  sense  its 
argument  is  sound. 
At  the  same  time  Professor  Broad  admits  that 

"the  evidence  of  two  senses  does  not  add  the  least  certainty 
to  the  existence  and  qualities  of  an  object  so  long  as  that  object 
continues  to  be  perceived;  for  this  certainty,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  is  the  highest  we  can  have,  therefore  no  evidence  can  hope  to 
increase  it."  ^ 

So  that  we  cannot  use  the  evidence  of  two  or  more 
senses  by  itself  to  prove  the  reality  of  an  object.  The 
evidence  of  two  senses  is  no  more  support  to  naif  re- 
alism than  the  evidence  of  one. 

So  far  we  have  only  been  considering  the  senses  of 
one  stationary  subject.  When  it  comes  to  several  sub- 
jects and  several  positions  of  one  subject  more  serious 
complications  arise ;  so  serious  that  in  the  face  of  them 
we  shall  see  that  naif  realism  can  no  longer  be  sup- 
ported.^ 

The  whole  ground  of  the  problem  at  its  present  stage 
would  seem  to  be  covered  by  one  dilemma. 

"Either  what  A  and  B  perceive  is  the  same  or  different.  If  it 
be  the  same  there  is  no  problem ;  if  different  then,  since  the  qualities 
of  their  perceptions  are  the  qualities  of  different  objects,  what 
matters  it  if  they  are  incompatible?  Why  should  not  both  objects 
exist  quite  comfortably  unperceived  either  by  A  or  B."  * 

So  that,  so  far,  naif  realism  would  seem  to  have 
scored. 

But  the  problem  here  is  not  quite  so  simple.  For  it 
involves  the  complicated  geometrical  properties  of  the 
objects.  A  by  himself  will  only  see  a  circle  in  the  flat 
as  circular  from  one  position  only.  B,  or  A  himself, 
occupying  another  position,  will  see  it  as  some  sort  of 

^Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  35. 

"...  "This  consideration   of  what   is   meant  by   two   persons     per- 
ceiving the  same  object'   and  one  person  'perceiving  the  same  object 
from  different  positions'  is  a  serious  stumbling-block  to  naif  realism. 
The  same,  p.  49. 

'  The  same,  p.  38. 


56  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

ellipse.  Touch  will  not  help  them  here,  if  the  circle 
is  in  the  flat.  But  if  you  have  a  sphere  the  case  is 
worse ;  for  touch  will  testify  to  one  sphere  which  can- 
not be  seen,  while  sight  will  testify  to  as  many  ellipsoids 
as  there  are  spectators  and  possible  positions  of  spec- 
tators, and  none  of  these  ellipsoids  will  be  tangible. 
Faced  with  the  ellipsoids  Professor  Broad  throws  up 
the  case  for  naif  realism,  not  on  account  of  ' '  synthetic 
incompatibility"  but  of  ''the  terrible  complications  in- 
volved. ' '  Incompatibility  there  will  be  none  as  long  as 
the  objects  are  held  to  be  different.  But  there  will  be 
more  real  ellipsoids  than  even  realism  can  stand.  So 
that 

"one  is  almost  forced  to  the  theory  of  a  common  cause  of  the 
perceptions  of  each  person  and  to  the  degradation  of  most  if  not 
all  of  these  perceptions  to  the  level  of  appearances."  ^ 

The  question  as  to  the  ''communicability"  of  sense 
perceptions  also  leaves  the  issue  doubtful  for  naif 
realism.  We  can  never  be  sure  that  when  two  people 
are  talking  about  colours  they  mean  the  same  thing, 
still  less  that  when  they  are  looking  at  colours  they 
are  looking  at  the  same  thing.  In  fact  it  is  sometimes 
quite  evident  that  they  mean  and  are  looking  at  differ- 
ent colours.  Rather  more  evident  than  appears  in  Pro- 
fessor Broad's  statement  of  the  case. 

When  my  partially  colour-blind  friend  and  I  have 
a  poppy  field  on  our  right  and  a  vivid  patch  of  heather 
on  our  left,  and  he  assures  me  that  the  colour  of  poppies 
is  the  colour  of  very  pale  daffodils,  and  the  colour  of 
heather  the  colour  of  delphiniums,  I  am  pretty  cer- 
tain that  what  he  cannot  see  is  red,  and  that  he  cannot 
see  it  either  by  itself  or  in  combination;  and  though 
I  cannot  be  quite  so  certain  that  he  really  sees  daffodils 
as  yellow,  I  conclude  that  he  does  see  some  blue,  since, 
in  the  combination,  purple,  blue  is  what  is  left  when  you 

^Perception,  Physics  and  'Reality,  p.  49. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  57 

have  abstracted  the  red.  But  I  shall  never  know 
whether  he  and  I  see  precisely  the  same  blue.  And  I 
can  see  very  delicate  rose  and  blue  and  green  and  ame- 
thyst and  orange  in  a  sheet  of  ice  where  another  friend, 
not  colour-blind,  can  only  see  a  watery  grey.  But  this 
is  a  different  case.  I  can  imagine  that  if  my  friend 
had  trained  her  sense  of  sight  she  would  have  seen 
those  delicate  colours  too.  But,  again,  I  should  never 
know  whether  she  and  I  would  ever  see  the  same  col- 
ours. On  the  other  hand  I  should  never  know  it  if  we 
didn't.  So  that  I  think  the  argument  from  mere  in- 
communicability  alone  proves  nothing  either  way,  while 
in  certain  cases  where  communicability  is  established, 
in  the  sense  that  I  know  what  colours  other  people  don't 
see,  the  discrepancy  involved  is  disastrous  to  na'if 
realism. 

The  problem  of  dreams  and  hallucinations  need  not 
detain  us  here,  as  it  cuts  both  ways  for  idealism  and 
realism,  and  idealists  would  agree  that  the  distinction 
between  illusory  objects  and  "real"  ones  lies  in  their 
context  and  not  their  character.  Dreams  are  true  while 
they  last.  And  I  shall  not  consider  the  argument  from 
perceptions  that  merge  into  feelings,  since  I  am  not 
pressing  it  here.^ 

Hitherto  we  have  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that 
causality  has  been  left  out  of  the  reckoning.  But  by 
now  it  is  very  clear  that  the  deliverances  of  the  senses 
involve  relativity  to  an  organ ;  which  brings  us  straight 
to  the  'instrumental"  and  the  ''causal"  theories  of 
perception.  It  is  also  clear  that  the  distinction  between 
appearance  and  the  real  arises  at  this  stage,  and  this 
brings  us  to  the  theory  of  Phenomenalism  which  must 
be  disposed  of  first.  Professor  Broad  disposes  of  it 
very  neatly. 

*  Professor  Broad's  theory  of  pleasures  and  pains  is  rather  more 
relevant  to  the  issue.    See  Appendix  I,  p.  315. 


58  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

Phenomenalisin  maintains  that  nothing  exists  except 
perceptions,  strings  and  assemblages  of  perceptions, 
to  which  no  objects  or  relations  of  objects  correspond. 
As  perceptions  have  no  real  permanent  cause,  there  will 
be  no  causal  laws,^  only  laws  of  the  mysterious  se- 
quence and  association  of  perceptions.  Professor 
Broad  points  out  that  phenomenalism  has  thus  no  right 
to  call  its  perceptions  appearances,  since  it  admits  noth- 
ing to  which  they  appear  and  no  reality  to  distinguish 
them  from,  or  of  which  they  can  be  said  to  be  the  ap- 
pearances. 

All  the  same  I  confess  I  cannot  see  what  else  it  could 
call  them.  Anyhow  it  is  clear  that  what  phenomenalism 
means  is  that  perceptions  have  no  reality  in  the  re- 
alist's sense. 

Phenomenalism  bases  its  argument  on  the  relativity 
of  perceptions  to  sense-organs.  Professor  Broad  says 
that  it  has  no  right  to  this  base,  because  it  would  deny 
that  sense-organs  have  "a  permanent  structure."  But 
phenomenalism  never  said  anything  about  relativity  to 
permanent  structures.  All  that  relativity  means  to  it 
is  relativity  to  certain  impermanent  structures  which 
are  also  mere  appearances.  Professor  Broad  says  that 
the  phenomenalist  has  no  right  to  talk  about  seeing 
things,  as  his  eye  will  itself  be  relative  to  other  people 's 
sense-organs  and  cannot  exist  when  nobody  is  looking 
at  it.  But  surely  even  a  phenomenalist  may  be  allowed 
to  make  inferences  like  other  people,  provided  they  do 
not  land  him  inconsistently  in  the  realism  he  denies.  If 
he  says  that  the  seeing  of  red  is  relative  to  the  struc- 
ture of  his  eyes,  he  is  entitled  to  infer  the  presence 
of  his  eyes  whenever  he  sees  red,  whether  anybody  sees 
his  eyes  or  not.  If  you  ask  him  how  he  then  knows 
that  his  seeing  is  relative  to  his  eyes  he  can  say  that  it 
appears  to  be  so ;  that  he  infers  the  relation  from  the 

^  See  Perception,  Physics  and  Eeality,  Chap.  II,  ' '  On  Causation. ' ' 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  59 

association  of  his  appearing  eyes  with  his  apparent  see- 
ing. For  though  his  eyes  can  never  appear  to  his  own 
eyesight  they  can  and  do  appear  to  his  general  sense 
and  his  sense  of  muscular  movement.  He  can  at  least 
open  and  shut  his  eyes.  And  he  can  make  inferences, 
Hke  other  people,  from  what  happens  then.  That  is 
to  say,  there  is  always  enough  association  between 
his  eyes  and  his  seeing  to  warrant  his  inferring  rela- 
tivity even  if  no  eye  has  ever  presented  to  him  the 
appearances  it  presents  to  the  anatomist  with  his 
scalpel  and  microscope,  who  associates  seeing  with 
dehcate  internal  structures  invisible  to  the  naked  sight. 

But  it  must  be  admitted  that  when  it  comes  to  objects 
beyond  the  reach  of  microscopes  and  eyes,  to  the  unper- 
ceived  and  imperceptible  particles  of  matter  in  motion, 
which  are  to  science  the  real  causes  of  perception,  the 
phenomenalist  is  in  a  very  awkward  case.  He  is  logi- 
cally bound  to  deny  the  existence  of  these  objects  and 
their  relations,  and  with  them  the  existence  of  the  im- 
perceptible matter-in-motion  of  the  sense-organ.  Thus 
the  relativity  of  perceptions  to  a  sense-organ,  perma- 
nent or  impermanent,  goes  by  the  board. 

The  idealist  who  is  not  a  phenomenalist  wiU  not 
quarrel  with  this  statement  of  the  position,  but  I  think 
he  will  hardly  admit  the  superior  happiness  of  the 
realist's  case  that  "boldly  assumes  real  causes  of  our 
perceptions  rather  like  their  objects."  ^ 

Professor  Broad  approaches  his  problem  of  phe- 
nomenalism with  two  questions  (bristling  with  contro- 
versy). 

"(a)  Why  should  it  be  held  to  be  a  priori  more  probable  that 
that  which  is  real  is  perceptions  than  that  it  is  something  like  the 
objects  of  our  perceptions?"' 

"(&)  Whether  laws  entirely  in  terms  of  perception  will  explain" 

^Perception,  Physics  and  Beaiity,  p.  167. 

*  The  same,  p.  168. 


60  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

[the  facts]   "better  than  laws  in  terms  of  realities  whose  general 
nature  is  like  that  of  the  objects  of  our  perception."  ^ 

The  answer  to  the  first  question  is  that  it  is  a  priori 
more  probable  that  perception  is  its  own  reality  be- 
cause no  other  reality  is  directly  given  in  perception. 
(This  is  not  denying  that  a  posteriori  it  may  be  less 
probable.) 

To  the  second  it  may  be  said  in  the  first  place  that  it 
is  not  the  idealist  who  distinguishes  between  primary 
perception  and  the  object  of  primary  perception,  while 
he  does  distinguish,  or  rather,  he  should  distinguish 
between  primary  and  secondary  perception;  so  that 
to  him  laws  in  terms  of  primary  perception  will  be  the 
same  as  laws  in  terms  of  objects  of  perception,  and  laws 
in  terms  of  secondary  perception  will  be  different. 
His  is  the  advantage  of  not  having  to  decide  the 
question  (bristling  again!)  of  likeness  or  unlikeness. 

In  the  second  place,  assuming  the  real  to  be  some- 
thing distinct  from  the  perception  of  it,  the  question 
arises  whether  it  is  something  that  depends  on  a  rela- 
tion to  the  organ  of  perception — for  example,  the  sen- 
sum  blue — ;  or  something  existing  unperceived  apart 
from  it — for  example,  light  waves  or  matter  in  motion 
— which  provides  the  stimulus  which  gives  rise  to  the 
sensum  blue.  Clearly  in  both  cases  the  sensum  is  the 
object  of  perception,  since  the  other  factors  are  un- 
perceived ;  and  clearly  there  is  no  resemblance  between 
the  sensum  blue  and  the  width  of  a  light  wave  or  the 
movements  of  matter  in  motion.  Even  more  clearly, 
in  the  former  case,  there  is  no  resemblance  between  the 
sensum  and  that  relation  to  a  sense-organ  on  which  it 
depends.  And  the  same  will  hold  good  of  all  sensa. 
Therefore  the  sense  elements  in  perception  are  as  un- 
like the  real  as  they  would  be  unlike  the  bare  act  of 
perceiving,  supposing  primary  perception  can  be  dis- 

^Ferception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  178. 


Ill  THE  CEITICAL  PREPARATIONS  61 

tingnished  from  its  content ;  and  I  think  it  is  not  easy 
to  show  that  it  can. 

But  the  concrete  object  is  never  a  pure  sensum  or 
complex  of  sensa;  it  has  spatial  and  geometrical  qual- 
ities and  relations  which,  again,  are  not  in  the  least 
**like"  light-waves  or  matter  in  motion.  It  has  also 
* '  categorial "  and  relational  characters  which,  as  they 
will  owe  nothing  to  anything  that  happens  to  sense- 
organs,  might  perhaps  fairly  be  real.  But  why  "like" 
the  real,  unless  you  are  taking  the  object  twice  over? 

It  will  be  seen  that  in  the  case  of  tactual  perception 
and  (unless  I  mistake  him)  in  all  other  cases  involving 
spatial  relations,  Professor  Broad  does  take  the  object 
twice  over,  once  as  object  of  perception  and  once  as 
causal  "counterpart."  And  why  take  it  twice  over 
when  by  the  very  assumption  "it,"  and  not  some  ap- 
pearance of  "it,"  is  what  is  perceived! 

Finally  he  concludes  that  the  laws 

"of  the  real  causes  of  our  perceptions  are  most  probably  those 
which  science  finds  it  necessary  to  assume  in  order  to  account  for 
what  is  perceived.  Now  those  laws  are  not  in  the  least  like  those 
which  perceptions  obey  among  themselves;  although  they  are  of 
course  connected  with  the  latter.  They  are,  in  fact,  laws  about  the 
kind  of  changes  that  we  can  perceive  in  the  object  of  a  single  con- 
tinuous perception;  and  the  only  common  characteristic  of  the 
objects  of  our  perceptions  and  the  perceptions  themselves  is  that 
both  have  temporal  relations  and  can  enter  into  causal  laws."  * 

And  he  fairly  challenges  idealism : 

"Hence,  until  anyone  can  make  up  a  theory  in  terms  of  laws  like 
those  which  hold  between  perceptions  which  will  explain  our  per- 
ceptions better  than  the  theory  of  science,  we  shall  be  justified 
in  holding  that  if  there  be  a  real  world  at  all  it  probably  resembles 
the  objects  of  our  perceptions." ' 

Observe  in  passing  that  the  one  thing  science  does 
not  account  for,  the  one  thing  that  fairly  howls  to  be 
accounted  for  on  any  realistic  theory,  is  "our  per- 

^  Perception,  Physios  and  Eeality.  p.  185. 
*The  same,  p.   187. 


62  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

ceptions,"  is  perception  itself.  Science  may  or  may 
not  account  for  the  alleged  real  and  independent  exis- 
tence of  the  objects  of  perception  (I  think  it  only  ac- 
counts for  their  behaviour  after  they  have  come  into 
existence),  leaving  perception  to  account  for  itself  as 
best  it  may. 

The  challenge  then  for  the  idealist  is  to  frame  his 
theory  so  that  its  terms  will  he  at  once  a  better  descrip- 
tion and  a  better  explanation  of  the  facts.  Of  this 
later.  ^ 

Meanwhile  Professor  Broad  examines  the  Causal 
theory  of  perception. 

To  avoid  misunderstanding  let  me  say  at  once  that  I, 
for  one,  do  not  agree  with  those  people  who  hold  ' '  that 
relativity  to  an  organ  is  fatal  to  the  reality  of  sense 
qualities."  Relativity  in  itself  can  only  be  fatal  to  the 
assumption  of  absolute,  unconditioned,  independent 
reality.  It  is  discrepancy  in  the  evidence  of  the  sense- 
organs  that  is  disastrous,  unless  you  are  content  to 
multiply  reals.  Personally,  if  I  were  a  realist  I  would 
ten  times  rather  put  up  with  the  multiplication  than 
assume  a  "real  counterpart"  characterised  as  ''like" 
the  multiplied  appearances.  It  is  hard  to  see  how  a 
real  sphere  can  be  like  those  multiplied  ellipsoids, 
though  all  the  multiplied  ellipsoids  may  very  well  be 
quite  real  though  relative  aspects  of  the  sphere. 
To  return  to  Professor  Broad: 

"The  fact  that  what  I  perceive  has  a  certain  relation  to  an 
organ  of  perception  cannot  possibly  be  by  itself  any  reason  for 
supposing  that  it  does  not  exist  when  it  is  not  perceived.  For 
the  relation  to  the  organ,  whatever  it  may  be,  is  not  the  relation 
of  being  perceived,  since  that  is  a  relation  to  the  mind  and  not 
to  the  body." 

(Idealists  will  agree  to  this  with  positive  enthusi- 
asm, glad  that  the  "mind"  should  have  a  look  in  at 
last.) 

^  See  below,  pp.  260  et  seq. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  63 

"To  prove  the  phenomenalist  conclusion  we  need  a  premise  to 
the  effect  that  the  relation  R  to  the  organ  of  sense,  whatever  it 
may  be,  implies  also  the  relation  of  being  perceived."  * 

We  are  reminded  that  besides  phenomenalism  there 
are  two  alternatives: 

"(i)  that  the  object  continues  to  exist  in  the  same  relation  to 
our  organs  even  when  we  cease  to  perceive  it,  or  (ii)  whilst  it 
cannot  be  perceived  when  it  ceases  to  stand  in  this  relation  to  an 
organ,  yet  it  does  not  cease  to  exist  when  it  ceases  to  stand  in  this 
relation." ' 

We  shall  find  that  the  latter  alternative,  sufficient 
for  some  realists,  is  not  sufficient  for  Professor  Broad. 
Existence  uniquely  in  relation  to  an  organ  or  organs, 
entailing  as  it  does  a  monstrous  multiplication  of  reals, 
is  no  satisfying  substitute  for  the  "real  counterpart" 
to  the  object  of  perception.  His  provisional  conclusion 
is  that 

"...  the  relativity  argument  has  proved  powerless  by  itself 
to  show  that  the  objects  of  our  perceptions  are  appearances  rather 
than  that  the  structure  of  our  organs  is  the  necessary  condition  of 
our  perceiving  certain  special  qualities  and  characteristics  of  re- 
ality." ' 

To  which  it  may  be  objected  that,  even  if  the  relation 
of  the  object  to  an  organ  is  the  condition  of  our  per- 
ceiving certain  qualities  and  characteristics,  we  have 
no  reason  for  assuming  that  these  are  necessarily  the 
qualities  and  characteristics  of  reality,  since  reality 
is  taken  to  be  that  which  exists  unperceived.  And  at 
certain  stages  of  his  argument  Professor  Broad  ap- 
pears to  admit  that  the  objection  holds.  We  have  to 
distinguish  between  two  interpretations  of  the  facts: 

"The  Instrumental  one  which  holds  that  our  organs  and  their 
detailed  structure  are  instruments  by  which  the  mind  perceives 
real  things   and  their  real   qualities   and   characteristics;   and   the 

^  Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p,  189. 
'The  same,  p.  189. 
'  The  same,  p.  197. 


64  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

Causal  one  which  holds  that  our  organs  and  their  internal  structure 
are  conditions  of  the  perception  by  the  mind  of  objects  and  dis- 
tinctions in  them,  both  of  which  for  aught  we  can  tell  are  mere 
appearances."  * 

Professor  Broad  goes  on  to  test  the  instrumental 
view  by  analogy  with  a  mechanical  instrument,  a  type- 
writer. You  start  with  a  typist  (a),  a  typewriter  (5), 
a  blank  sheet  of  paper  (c),  and  an  effect  (d).  The  ex- 
ample proves  fatal  to  the  analogy  with  our  sense  in- 
struments, because  in  typing  the  mind  of  the  typist  {a) 
produces  an  effect  (d),  on  matter  {c),  (the  paper), 
by  means  of  the  instrument  {b) ;  whereas  in  perception 
the  real  object  (c)  produces  the  effect  {d)  on  the  mind 
(a)  by  means  of  the  instrument  (b).  In  the  one  se- 
quence we  begin  with  mind  in  the  other  we  end  with  it.^ 

The  instrumental  theory  breaks  down  when  we  have 
to  distinguish  between  appearances  and  realities.  It  is 
as  if  the  instrumental  view  had  waked  Professor  Broad 
with  a  shock  to  the  fact  that  after  all  there  are  such 
things  as  appearances.  There  is  the  instrument  of  the 
insect's  eye,  so  different  in  structure  from  our  own  that 
it  is  impossible  to  believe  that  objects  appear  the  same 
to  it  as  they  appear  to  our  eyes.  Unless  we  assume 
that  all  these  differences  are  appearances  caused  by  one 
real  object  we  have  the  trouble  that  we  had  in  the  case 
of  the  ellipsoids  all  over  again.  Too  many  realities  for 
realism  to  put  up  with.  But,  with  one  exception,  the 
instruments  that  cause  us  to  perceive  all  these  objects 
so  differently  afford  no  criterion  for  distinguishing 
between  appearance  and  reality. 

Thus  we  are  driven  to  the  Causal  theory,  which,  how- 
ever gives  us  no  assurance  of  the  real. 

According  to  the  causal  theory  (I  must  again  quote 
Professor  Broad's  own  words,  for  the  ground  here 
is  dangerous  and  I  do  not  want  to  attribute  to  him 

^  Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  197. 
»The  same,  pp.  202-204. 


Ill  THE  CEITICAL  PREPARATIONS  65 

recognitions  and  admissions  which  are  not  his),  ac- 
cording to  the  cansal  theory, 

"Something  X  acts  on  the  organ,  the  organ  and  the  mind  to- 
gether produce  a  perception  as  a  whole,  i.  e.,  something  from  which 
indeed  an  object  can  be  analysed  out,  though  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  it  can  exist  out  of  that  whole  called  a  perception. 
Such  an  object  is  an  appearance  in  our  sense  of  the  word."  * 

As  against  the  instrumental  theory  which  assumed 
that  the  sense-organs  give  true  knowledge  about  real- 
ity, the  causal  theory  is  not  very  encouraging  to 
thoroughgoing  realism. 

Let  us  look  at  it  a  little  closer.  To  a  certain  extent 
common  sense  takes  the  causal  view.  Their  combined 
assumptions  amount  to  this  (to  quote  Professor  Broad 
again) : 

"(a)  Certain  objects  of  perception  have  events  in  them  which  are 
causes  of  those  objects  being  perceived;  and  (b)  All  objects  that  are 
real  and  are  perceived  have  the  perception  of  themselves  caused  by 
events  in  them."  * 

How  can  we  prove  that  either  of  these  propositions 
is  true  ?  The  analysis  shows  that  it  cannot  be  done  by 
direct  observation.  "We  can  only  start  with  the  object 
of  perception  at  the  moment  of  perception,  and  there 
is  no  way  of  observing  the  causal  event,  which  on  the 
hypothesis  must  either  have  preceded  the  perception, 
or,  if  simultaneous  with  it,  is  not  to  be  distinguished 
in  the  result.  Let  us  assume,  then,  as  science  assumes, 
hypothetical  events  in  hypothetical  objects  and  hypo- 
thetical parts  of  the  alleged  object.  But  these  are 
imperceptible.  Moreover  science  has  already  given 
up  the  reality  ot  secondary  qualities  and  on  this  foot- 
ing will  deal  only  with  primary.  These,  or  rather,  some 
of  these  in  certain  geometrical  relations,  are  all  that 
it  allows  perception  to  tell  us  of  the  real. 

*  Perception,  Physics  and  'Reality,  p.  204. 
» The  same,  p.  211. 


66  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

And  all  the  time  the  real,  causal  real  remains  unper- 
ceived. 

In  other  words,  the  scientific  theory  takes  what  it 
wants  of  the  instrumental  and  causal  views  and  comes 
to  the  conclusion  that  some — not  all — primary  qualities 
are  real,  and  that  all  secondary  ones  are  mere  appear- 
ances because  not  discernible  in  the  external  cause. 
Anyhow,  we  are  left  with  a  lot  of  these  appearances  on 
our  hands. 

"The  crux  of  the  whole  question  then  really  is  whether  we  can 
keep  the  instrumental  view  for  the  perception  of  primaries.  If 
so,  we  can  keep  the  scientific  theory  as  in  essence  true  about  a  large 
part  of  reality."  * 

The  trouble  is  that  science  gives  up  so  many  prim- 
aries.   It 

"is  perfectly  convinced  that  most  of  the  shapes  and  sizes  that 
we  perceive  are  not  real,  but  are  appearances  more  or  less  like 
the  reality."' 

Why  ''like"?  And  how  can  science  tell  whether 
''like'"?  And  we  may  ask  whether  primary  qualities 
are  not  in  the  same  case  with  secondary  qualities  in 
being  indiscernible  in  the  real  cause.  How  do  I  know 
that  an  object  said  to  be  a  sphere  really  is  a  sphere 
when  all  that  I  perceive  of  it  is  ellipsoidal?  I  can  go 
round  and  round  it  and  correlate  my  ellipsoids  so  that 
together  they  form  a  sphere;  but  never  at  any  one 
moment  do  I  perceive  the  sphere.  Never  the  sphere 
and  the  time  and  the  elhpsoids  all  together.  I  can 
only  construct  the  sphere  intellectually  so  that  either 
I  judge  its  "real"  (which  is  just  as  much  its  "ideal") 
character  to  be  spherical,  or  I  can  judge  all  its  relative 
appearances  to  be  "real";  but  as  far  as  perception 
goes  I  appear  to  be  dealing  all  the  time  with  appear- 
ances.   Am  I? 

*  Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  230, 
'The  same,  p.  230. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PEEPARATIONS  67 

Now  before  Professor  Broad  arrived  at  the  causal 
theory  he  decided  that  the  testimony  of  two  senses  adds 
nothing  to  the  reality  of  an  object  when  its  reality  has 
already  been  testified  to  by  one.  A  thing  cannot  be 
more  real  than  real.  He  now  enquires  whether  the 
'instrumental"  view  (which  asserts  the  reality  of  all 
objects  perceived  through  the  medium  of  sense-organs) 
adds  anything  to  what  was  said  before,  whether,  that 
is  to  say,  it  brings  in  considerations  which  make  the 
assumption  of  their  reality  more  plausible.  Now  the 
only  additional  consideration  it  brings  (if  we  admit  the 
possibility)  is  that  of  a  direct  relation  through  the 
instrumentality  of  our  sense-organs  between  our  minds 
and  events  occurring  in  objects.  When  our  sense-or- 
gans assure  us  that  an  object  is  presenting  itself  both 
as  a  circle  and  as  an  ellipse  they  are  introducing  us  to 
appearances  and  not  to  realities. 

"If  we  decide,  then,  (a)  that  most  of  the  visually  perceived 
objects  are  to  be  counted  as  appearances,  so  as  to  prevent  the  in- 
finite multiplication  of  reals,  (6)  that  all  the  visual  objects  and 
also  the  tactual  objects  are  connected  with  a  single  reality  and  (c) 
that  under  suitable  circumstances  this  common  reality  can  be  an; 
object  of  both  sight  and  touch,  we  shall  have  to  conclude  that  the 
reality  is  circular  and  not  elliptical."  ^ 

That  is  to  say,  on  the  grounds  that  the  instrumental 
view  has  made  a  difference  to  the  question,  he  now 
decides  that,  after  all,  two  senses  are  better  than  one 
for  determining  reality;  this,  after  counting  most  of 
the  visually  perceived  objects  as  appearances  for  an 
excellent  reason. 

It  is  hard  to  see  how  one  sense  can  be  said  to  sup- 
port the  evidence  of  another  when  that  other  is  found 
to  be  untrustworthy.  It  is  also  hard  to  see  how  the 
introduction  of  an  "instrument"  which  on  the  theory's 
own  showing  only  serves  to  complicate  matters,  should 
make  more  plausible  what  was  not  plausible  without  it. 

^Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  237. 


68  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

Now,  does  the  fact  that  we  can  and  do  correlate  the 
appearance  with  the  reality,  the  unreal  ellipse  with 
the  real  circle,  make  most  for  the  unreality  of  the  circle 
or  the  reality  of  the  ellipse?  It  seems  to  me  that  once 
you  have  admitted  the  possibility  of  unreality  either 
in  your  secondary  qualities  or  your  primary  ones,  the 
game  of  realism  is  up.  The  correlation  corrupts  the 
primary  qualities  said  to  be  real  more  than  it  rehabili- 
tates the  incurably  unreal  ones.  Science  in  making 
use  of  the  instrumental  theory  is  forced  to  ''the  con- 
clusion that  we  never  see  solid  bodies  as  they  really 
are."    And  Professor  Broad  asks : 

"Can  we  give  any  reasonable  account  of  what  we  mean  by  the 
instrument  being  wrongly  adjusted  or  out  of  order;  and  will  not 
the  account  of  this  be  so  general  that  it  will  replace  the  old  instru- 
mental theory  altogether  1"  * 

The  appearance  and  the  reality  have  this  in  com- 
mon that  (in  the  case  of  the  circle  and  the  ellipse)  they 
are  both  shapes.  What  is  more,  the  ellipse,  as  Pro- 
fessor Broad  points  out,  is  very  like  a  circle.  You  can 
go  further  and  say  that  it  has  such  geometrical  rela- 
tions to  the  circle  that  it  would  be  the  height  of  rash- 
ness to  deny  that  they  belong  to  the  same  world. 

To  the  same  world,  then,  of  objects  perceived?  Or 
of  objects  that  exist  in  the  absence  of  perception? 

Professor  Broad  states  the  argument  for  idealism 
with  exceeding  fairness  on  page  two  hundred  and  forty- 
one.  On  page  two  hundred  and  forty-two  he  is  less 
admirable.  He  says  that  the  present  position  is  ana- 
lysable  into 

"states  of  brain  caused  by  states  of  organs,  caused  by  states  of 
something  else.  The  states  of  brain,  however  caused,  produce  the 
same  perception  whose  object  is  of  course  an  appearance;  but  in 
some  cases  the  object  perceived  resembles  a  reality,  states  in  which 
are  a  remote  cause  of  those  in  the  organ."  * 

*  Perception,  Physics  and  'Reality,  p.  239. 
» The  same,  p.  241. 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  69 

Professor  Broad  admits  that  while  there  is  a  cor- 
respondence in  our  sense-organs  with  the  general  qual- 
ities of  objects  perceived  by  means  of  them,  we  cannot 
trace  any  such  correspondence  with  the  particular  char- 
acteristics of  those  organs;  but  he  concludes  that  the 
particular  correspondence  must  exist  because  the  gen- 
eral correspondence  can  be  traced.  But  correspondence 
or  no  correspondence,  realism  cannot  well  be  content 
with  a  theory  that  obliges  it  to  regard  so  many  qualities 
of  objects  as  mere  appearances,  while  at  the  same  time 
it  maintains  that  some  of  these  appearances,  where 
primary,  are  a  guide  to  the  qualities  of  their  remote 
objects.  So  far,  realism  is  arguing  from  an  admitted 
appearance  to  a  reality,  assuming  that  resemblance 
holds,  whereas  the  most  that  science  can  assert  is  that 
the  remote  cause  of  perceptions  is  common  to  the  per- 
ceptions of  different  perceivers,  not  that  it  is  like  the 
objects  of  their  perception.  And  here,  with  the  pos- 
sible failure  of  the  scientific  theory  before  his  eyes.  Pro- 
fessor Broad  once  more  challenges  idealism. 

"Any  alternative  hypothesis  about  the  real  will  have  to  rest  its 
probability  entirely  on  its  ability  to  explain  the  perceived." ' 

It  is  confidently  expected  that  idealism  will  not  be 
able  to  bear  the  strain. 

To  this  it  may  be  said  that  the  scientific  theory,  so 
far,  has  not  explained  the  perceived  in  its  relation  to 
perception.  But  let  that  pass  for  the  moment.  Does 
the  probability  of  the  alternative  theory  rest  entirely 
on  its  ability  to  explain,  that  is  to  say,  on  its  ability 
to  explain  entirely!  Supposing  the  alternative  isn't 
quite  so  drastic?  Supposing  science  explains  up  to  a 
certain  point,  up  to  the  point  of  psychophysical  cor- 
respondence, and  confesses  its  inability  to  bridge,  not 
only  the  gap  between  the  loose  end  of  the  physical  chain 
and  the  psychic  fact  of  perception,  but  the  gap  between 

^  Perception,  Physics  and  Eeality,  p.  247. 


70  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

the  real  and  the  merely  appearing  qualities  of  the  ob- 
ject? Isn't  it  enough  if  the  idealist's  theory,  while 
leaving  the  links  of  the  physical  chain  intact  in  their 
order,  does  away  with  all  the  gaps  by  denying  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  real  and  the  appearing,  and  by 
linking  up  the  chain  with  consciousness  at  each  loose 
end?  It  must,  of  course,  be  a  probable  linking  up,  a 
linking  up  that  does  no  violence  to  the  alleged  real. 
But  hasn't  the  idealist  just  as  much  right  to  argue 
from  the  fact  of  consciousness  at  the  near  end  to  the 
probability  of  consciousness  at  the  far  end,  and  to  say 
that  the  real  there  is  "like"  the  real  here,  as  the  realist 
has  to  argue  from  the  qualities  of  the  perceived  ob- 
ject to  the  qualities  of  its  unperceived  real  cause  and 
say  that  appearance  here  is  like  reality  there  1  He  has, 
if  anything,  more  right,  because,  in  the  first  place,  he 
is  not  starting  with  the  distinction  between  appear- 
ance and  reality  here ;  in  the  second,  he  is  not  leaving 
perception  itself  on  one  side.  Let  alone  that  science 
altogether  fails  to  account  for  the  sensuous  particulars 
in  perception. 

Professor  Broad  sees  all  this  as  clearly  as  the  ideal- 
ist; but  after  exposing  the  difficulties  of  the  theory  of 
science  he  still  concludes  that,  after  all,  there  is  no  al- 
ternative theory  that  so  well  explains  the  facts.  And 
the  idealist  may  ask  him:  Does  idealism  disturb  the 
facts?  And  does  the  scientific  theory  allow  for  all  the 
facts?  The  one  fact  that  idealism  allows  for  and  the 
scientific  theory  does  not,  is,  as  I  have  just  said,  the 
not  unimportant  fact  of  perception  itself.  The  scien- 
tific theory,  therefore,  is  very  far  from  explaining  all 
the  facts.  It  begins  by  divorcing  the  objects  of  per- 
ception from  perception  itself,  analysing  them  from 
that  isolated  standpoint,  and  ends  by  leaving  percep- 
tion wholly  unexplained.  It  does  not  cover  perception 
as  a  whole  covers  its  parts.    And  it  cannot  solve  the 


Ill  THE  CEITICAL  PREPARATIONS  71 

hopeless  contradictions  between  appearance  and  reality 
■within  its  system. 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  find  Professor  Broad  con- 
fessing that 

"the  scientific  theory  would  gain  in  probability  by  not  having  to 
make  such  definite  and  complicated  assumptions  about  reality."^ 

He  admits  all  the  awkwardness  of  regarding  colour 
and  sound  as  qualities  like  the  real. 

But  when  he  comes  to  touch  his  difficulties  vanish. 
Here,  he  argues,  we  have  the  indubitable  real,  the  per- 
ceived quality  that  is  like  the  quality  of  its  unperceived 
cause.  He  adopts  again  the  "instrumental"  view  of 
touch  that  he  was  obliged  to  abandon  in  the  case  of 
sight.  And  before  we  quarrel  with  his  apparent  incon- 
sistency we  must  remember  that  in  the  case  of  sight  he 
was  put  off  the  instrumental  theory  because  of  the 
terrible  multiplicity  of  reals  involved — all  those  ellip- 
soids. But  the  troubles  of  realism  are  not  ended.  The 
instrumental  theory  of  touch  has,  indeed,  the  advantage 
that  it  does  not  involve  you  in  anything  of  the  sort  on 
its  own  account ;  but  by  the  backing  that  it  gives  to  the 
deliverances  of  sight  it  at  once  brings  all  those  realities 
down  about  your  ears  again.  Or  else  you  must  say  that 
while  touch  witnesses  to  reality  sight  does  not,  a  state- 
ment not  very  intelligible  in  view  of  the  fact  that  its  de- 
liverances can  be  correlated  with  those  of  touch  in  our 
geometrical  system. 

Or,  say  that  sight  only  witnesses  truly  when  it  is 
corroborated  by  touch,  and  that  for  the  rest  it  leaves 
us  with  all  those  unreal  ellipsoids  on  our  hands.  That 
is  saying  that  the  most  highly  specialised,  the  subtlest, 
the  most  intellectual  of  our  senses,  the  one  most  con- 
cerned in  our  geometrical  judgments,  is  the  most  un- 
trustworthy, and  needs  the  backing  of  the  most  gen- 

*  Perception,  Physics  and  Beality,  p.  249. 


72  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

eralised,  the  most  slap-dash  and  hap-hazard  of  our 
senses  next  to  taste  and  smell.  It  would  of  course  be 
irrelevant  to  point  out  that  sight  and  sound  have  been 
throughout  the  ages  the  most  valuable  of  human  senses, 
from  the  most  primitive  and  savage  life  of  action  up 
to  the  latest  and  highest  life  of  civilization  and  of  art. 
For  they  might  very  well  be  all  this  and  yet  very  far 
from  assuring  us  of  reality  beyond  perception,  and 
in  any  case  these  considerations  are  not  on  the  present 
level  of  the  enquiry.  The  real  trouble  is  that  sight 
does  not  invariably  consent,  as  it  ought  on  the  realist 
theory,  to  follow  the  superior  leading  of  touch. 

Professor  Broad  comes  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
circle  is  real  while  all  these  ellipses  are  not.  But  of 
a  circle  or  of  any  other  figure  in  the  flat  touch  cannot 
tell  us  anything  at  all.  It  does  no  corroborating  here. 
It  tells  us  that  the  sphere  is  spherical  ^  but  its  testi- 
mony stands  alone,  for  it  is  just  here  that  sight  ob- 
stinately refuses  to  follow  it. 

And  when  it  comes  to  what  we  know  or  rather  what 
science  assumes  to  be  the  nature  of  the  unperceived 
real,  it  cannot  be  said  that  touch  is  in  any  better  case 
than  sight,  or  than  sound  for  that  matter,  because  un- 
perceived matter  is  intmigihle.  Even  perceived  mat- 
ter that  touch  perceives  to  be  dense  science  demon- 
strates to  be  permeable;  a  surface  that  touch  perceives 
as  even  or  unbroken  science  declares  to  be  rough  and  to 
have  no  cohesion;  bodies  that  touch  perceives  as  at 
rest  in  all  their  parts  science  knows  to  be  agitated  by 
violent  molecular  and  atomic  movement.  In  judging 
temperatures  touch  and  the  thermometer  do  not  agree 
with  any  accuracy. 

And  in  the  one  role  left  it  as  a  truthful  mtness,  its 
discernment  of  three  dimensional  figures,  can  we  be 
perfectly  sure  that  it  is  touch  and  touch  alone  that  is 

*  Even  this  must  be  admitted  with  reservations.     See  pp.  74-76. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPAEATIONS  73 

witnessing  immediately  and]  to  reality?  When  we 
see  colour  in  mass  as  extended  we  may  be  fairly  certain 
that  we  are  seeing  extended  colour  or  coloured  exten- 
sion (whatever  that  may  mean) ;  when  we  draw  our 
hand  over  an  extended  surface  we  may  be  fairly  certain 
that  we  are  feeling  smoothness  and  hardness ;  when  we 
see  a  circle  in  the  flat  we  may  be  equally  sure  that  while 
we  remain  in  the  position  that  gives  that  particular 
view  we  are  seeing  a  circle ;  but  it  may  be  questioned 
whether  the  up  and  down,  right  and  left,  backwards  and 
forwards  of  the  movements  are  perceived  by  any  one 
sense  alone.  It  is  hard  to  tell  what  is  precisely  the 
naked  role  of  feeling  in  so  highly  educated  a  sense  as 
touch — all  our  senses  are  more  or  less  sophisticated 
by  judgment — but  it  is  quite  clear  that  we  are  dealing 
here  with  a  complex  the  full  account  of  which  cannot 
be  given  in  terms  of  mere  contact.  The  sense  of  direc- 
tion (which  enters  into  all  our  tactual  perceptions  of 
figures),  so  far  as  it  can  be  said  to  be  a  sense  and  not 
a  judgment,  is  a  complicated  aifair  involving  corre- 
lated perceptions  both  of  muscular  movements  and  of 
sight.  So  far  from  touch  correcting  sight  here,  sight 
has  to  be  called  in  to  supplement  touch. 

Nor  can  you  leave  movement  altogether  out  of  the 
visual  relation.  In  fact,  visual  and  tactual  percep- 
tions would  seem  to  be  very  much  alike  in  this  respect. 
I  can  see  that  a  sphere  is  a  sphere,  not  all  at  once, 
but  bit  by  bit,  by  going  all  round  it,  that  is  to  say,  by 
moving  my  eyes  round  it  and  correlating  my  percepts. 
Similarly  I  feel  that  it  is  a  sphere,  not  all  at  once,  but 
bit  by  bit,  by  moving  my  hands  or  my  fingers  round 
it  and  correlating  my  percepts.  Or,  if  it  is  small 
enough,  I  can  turn  it  in  my  hands,  thus  bringing  it  into 
the  same  relation  to  my  eyes  as  if  my  eyes  were  turning 
round  it.  Again,  as  my  sense  of  touch  is  general 
throughout  my  body,  I  can  feel  surfaces  with  any  part 


74  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

of  it;  but  if  that  part  is  stationary  I  shall  not  feel 
shapes.  If  my  hands  were  as  limited  in  their  move- 
ments as  my  eyes  I  should  not  feel  shapes  any  better 
than  I  see  them;  and  if  I  carried  my  eyes  not  inside 
my  head  but  on  an  elevated  ring,  like  a  candelabrum, 
outside  it,  I  should  see  every  part  of  any  sphere  that 
came  within  its  circumference  all  at  once,  and  as  well 
as  if  I  had  felt  it. 

Now  in  tactual  perception  of  three  dimensional 
shapes,  if  your  sphere  is  small  enough  to  be  grasped 
in  one  hand  (say,  a  marble  or  a  ball)  it  may  be  said 
roughly  that  we  perceive  it  by  touch  as  round ;  but  the 
more  accurate  account  of  the  matter  would  be,  surely, 
that  we  judge  it  be  round  by  correlating  feelings  of 
contact  with  feelings  of  muscular  contraction,  the  grip 
and  set  of  the  hand,  the  position  of  the  fingers.^  So 
that  even  here  we  cannot  get  touch  in  the  required 
perfection  of  its  innocence.  Or  if  we  say  that  the 
sphere  is  perceived  by  turning  it  in  the  hands  or  by 
moving  a  finger-tip  round  it  in  successive  circles,  then, 
equally,  correlations,  judgments  or  perceptions  of 
movement  and  direction  have  come  in.  Increase  and 
go  on  increasing  the  size  of  your  sphere  and  the  role 
of  judgment  is  increased  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
role  of  touch,  till,  if  your  sphere  be  big  enough  all  that 
touch  can  testify  to  will  be  a  flat  surface. 

Or  take  the  tactual  perception  of  a  triangular  cube. 
We  indeed  perceive  by  touch  alone  the  sharp  edge  of] 
the  sides,  the  points  of  the  angles,  the  smoothness  of  I 
the  surfaces;  correlated  with  muscular  movements  of] 
the  hand  or  fingers  touch  may  be  said  to  yield  even 
shape  and  size ;  though,  here  again,  and  wherever  therej 
is  such  correlation,  judgment  probably  steps  in,  and  it] 

*  Possibly   the   truth   may   be   that   what   we    once,   in   our   exploring 
infancy,  judged,  slowly  and  laboriously,  to  be  round  we  now  do  actually] 
perceive  to  be  round  by  an  instantaneous  correlation  of  percepts:  but! 
this  is  psychology  and  irrelevant  here. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATION^  75 

is  doubtful  whether  by  touch  alone  we  ever  perceive 
shape  as  a  whole  or  size  as  a  whole.  In  fact  on  Pro- 
fessor Broad's  own  showing — or  indeed  on  anybody's — 
it  can  never  be  said  with  any  certainty  that  touch,  in 
its  first  innocence  and  purity,  conveys  anything  to  per- 
ception but  those  secondary  qualities  which  he  has  de- 
cided to  regard  as  mere  appearances.  There  is  little 
doubt  that  we  associate  these  secondary  qualities  with 
our  judgments  (or  perceptions)  of  shapes,  and  sizes 
and  geometrical  properties  generally;  but  in  this  case 
we  have  done  it  so  inveterately  and  so  long  that  it  is 
difficult  now,  if  not  impossible,  to  disentangle  them 
from  the  result,  though  at  first  sight  it  may  seem  ob- 
vious that  we  ought  to  be  able  to.  As  it  is  you  have 
only  to  extend  the  scale  and  complicate  the  system  of 
your  figures  for  the  element  of  judgment  to  emerge 
unmistakably.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  so  far  from 
one  sense  correcting  or  corroborating  another,  this 
must  always  be  an  affair  of  judgment — rapid  and  un- 
conscious, of  course,  but  judgment.  If  we  could  ever 
catch  a  sensum  in  its  first  freshness  it  would  tell  us 
nothing  of  reality,  though,  on  a  realist  hypothesis,  it 
might  he  it. 

So  that,  if  we  pay  no  regard  to  motion,  the  sense  of 
touch  is  no  more  faithful  witness  to  reality  than  sight. 
Yet  it  is  to  this  sense  that  Professor  Broad  takes  his 
flight  from  the  intolerable  multiplicity  of  ellipsoids. 
And  we  have  still  to  ask  how,  when,  with  sight  and  touch 
and  movement  all  correctly  correlated,  we  have  suc- 
ceeded in  combining  our  many  ellipsoids  into  one 
sphere — ^how  do  we  know  that  that  sphere  is  a  reality 
that  exists  when  we  do  not  perceive  it?  It  must,  I 
think,  be  agreed  that  we  do  not  directly  perceive  it  as 
a  reality  any  more  than  we  perceive  it  as  one  or  a 
sphere.  And  I  think  it  must  be  equally  clear  that  we 
have  just  as  much  and  no  more  reason  to  suppose  it  is 


76  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

a  reality  as  we  have  to  suppose  it  is  one  and  a  sphere ; 
and  our  reasons  have  precisely  the  same  grounds :  that 
is  to  say,  that  at  whatever  time  we  observe  it  we  find 
that  it  is  separated  in  space  from  other  bodies,  and  that 
both  its  boundaries  and  its  parts  have  certain  geomet- 
rical, spatial  relations  to  each  other  such  that  at  what- 
ever time  we  observe  them  we  find  them  always  the 
same.  Also,  as  we  know  from  observation  that,  though 
the  relation  of  each  part  to  our  bodies  and  their  sense- 
organs  will  vary  with  the  movements  and  positions  of 
these  bodies  and  these  organs,  their  relation  to  their 
own  whole  is  constant ;  therefore  we  infer  that  that  re- 
lation exists  apart  from  the  movement  and  position  of 
our  bodies ;  in  other  words  that  in  relation  to  that  move- 
ment and  position  it  is  an  independent  real. 

But  this  is  not  saying  that  the  whole  is  a  real,  and  in- 
dependent of  our  combined  perceptions.  And  we  are 
faced  with  this  dilemma:  If  we  deny  its  independence 
we  shall  have  to  admit  between  the  whole  and  its  parts 
a  temporal  cleavage  fatal  to  their  spatial  integrity; 
that  is  to  say,  the  parts — for  example,  each  ellipsoid — 
will  exist  in  dependence  on  our  partial  perception  at  a 
time  previous  to  the  existence  of  the  combination,  the 
whole. 

And  this  is  a  simple  dilemma.^ 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  assert  the  independence  of 
the  whole  on  our  perceptions,  partial  or  combined,  the 
dilemma  is  considerably  more  complicated.  We  shall 
then  have  set  up  a  multiplicity  of  spatially  incom- 
patible reals  (for  each  ellipsoid  was  real  while  it 
lasted)  within  the  whole,  and  introduced  a  spatial  in- 
tegrity of  these  reals,  impossible  in  itself  and  fatal 
to  their  separation  in  time.  For  in  the  whole  the  parts, 
all  temporally  incompatible  in  partial  perception,  in- 
asmuch as  they  must  necessarily  fall  in  separate  times, 

*  For  its  solution  see  pp.  264-267. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  77 

and  ynany  spatially  incompatible  (where  their  boun- 
daries overlap) — all  these  in  compatibles,  say,  will  be 
co-existing  at  the  same  time. 

And  supposing  we  adopt  Professor  Broad's  assump- 
tion of  the  independent  real  "counterpart"  which  is 
"like"  the  object  of  our  tactual  perception  and  related 
to  it  in  a  point  to  point  correspondence  ?  I  am  not  quite 
clear  as  to  whether  he  does  allow  this  entity  to  be  also 
the  counterpart  of  the  object  of  our  visual  perception, 
with  its  tactual  and  visual  qualities  correlated  analo- 
gously to  the  qualities  of  the  object  perceived;  but  I 
think  he  must,  for  otherwise  the  totality  of  perceived 
visual  qualities  will  lose  all  relation  to  the  real,  and  we 
shaU  be  saddled  with  three  entities  (a)  the  perceived 
visual  object,  unreal,  but  mysteriously  related  to  (b) ; 
the  real  perceived  tactual  object;  and  (c)  the  counter- 
part of  the  tactual  object,  correlated  with  it  at  all  points 
but  cut  off  from  all  direct  relation  to  the  visual  object. 
Moreover,  if  the  object  of  tactual  perception  and  the  ob- 
ject of  visual  perception  are  different  objects,  one  with 
a  counterpart  and  one  without,  there  is  no  possible 
sense  in  which  we  can  be  said  either  to  see  the  same  ob- 
ject as  other  people  or  the  same  object  that  we  ourselves 
feel.  And  the  one  real  and  common  counterpart  will 
not  be  the  cause  of  both  these  objects  but  of  one.  It 
wiU  not  really  be  common. 

(And  yet  I  am  puzzled ;  for  Professor  Broad  does  dis- 
tinctly say  that  the  visual  and  tactual  objects  of  percep- 
tion are  not  one  but  two.) 

But  supposing  this  counterpart  entity  contains  the 
counterparts  of  all  the  qualities  of  the  perceived  object, 
except  the  secondary  ones,  which  the  consistent  realist 
would  count  as  real  but  which  Professor  Broad  and 
science  will  not  have  at  any  price,  supposing  that  every- 
where these  prodigious  counterparts  exist,  you  have 
then  a  duplication,  and  I  think  a  very  unnecessary  and 


78  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

complicated  duplication  wMch,  if  thorough  enough,  can 
only  repeat,  boundary  for  boundary  and  point  for  point, 
those  incompatible s  it  was  called  in  to  reconcile  and 
explain.  And  if  not  thorough,  on  what  principle  do  we 
pick  and  choose?  What  incompatibles  are  we  to  ab- 
stract from  the  counterpart  if  it  is  to  remain  a  counter- 
part? 

But  this  theory  provides  more  entanglements  than 
we  have  realised  yet.    Not  only  is  it 

"possible  to  reason  from  a  visually  perceived  object  of  a  given 
shape  to  the  real  counterpart  of  a  tactual  fignre  of  definite  shape, 
events  in  which  do  cause  the  visual  perceptions  which  we  have,  and 
which,  if  we  performed  the  proper  actions,  would  give  us  a  cor- 
responding tactual  perception, 

but 

".  .  .  such  a  statement  as  *I  cannot  perceive  an  atom  but  I  believe 
that  atoms  are  shaped  like  dumb-bells'  means  that  I  believe  that 
there  exist  in  the  real  counterpart  realities  qualitatively  like  those, 
events  in  which  cause  visual  perception  of  dumb-bell  shaped  figures, 
but  the  real  quantity  which  corresponds  to  the  sizes  and  volumes  and 
surfaces  in  perceived  objects  is  so  small  that  no  perception  is 
actually  produced." 

As  we  shall  see,  this  is  a  jolly  good  thing  for  the  real 
counterpart  if  it  is  to  remain  real. 

Eemember,  the  unperceived  figure  with  its  shape  and 
distance,  all  its  geometrical  qualities,  the  figure  that 
exists  when  we  do  not  perceive  it,  is  never  the  figure 
we  perceive  but  always  its  counterpart.  Never  the  fig- 
ure we  perceive,  never  a  figure  we  have  perceived,  never 
an  object  of  possible  perception,  and  yet  we  are  asked 
to  believe  that  there  would  correspond  to  it "  a  tactually 
perceived  figure  with  the  geometrical  qualities  in  ques- 
tion, if  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  did  have  such  a  percep- 
tion." 

Now  what  on  earth  is  to  prevent  the  idealist  from 
refusing  point-blank  to  accept  this  preposterous  coun- 
terpart, throwing  the  whole  assumption  overboard  and 
confronting  the  realist  with  what  is  left — the  objects 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  79 

of  his  perception  which  he  has  just  shown  to  be  more 
unreal  than  idealism  could  wish!  Unreal,  because 
perceived. 

And  on  the  top  of  all  this  excitement  Professor  Broad 
introduces  the  dumb-bell  shaped  atom,  so  that  the  ideal- 
ist 's  happy  cup  is  now  full.  Up  till  now  you  might  have 
supposed  that  the  real  counterpart,  though  to  our  per- 
ception unsized  and  imperceptible,  would,  in  the  sheer 
contradiction  of  its  nature,  be  a  sizeable  thing  (since  it 
was  a  tactual  counterpart)  composed  of  atoms;  and 
now  it  turns  out  that  it  may  be  an  atom  itself  that  would 
be  perceived  in  the  form  of  a  dumb-bell  were  it  tran- 
scendently  magnified.  And  this  question  of  magnitude 
is  exceedingly  important.  It  means  that  if  there  were 
intelligences  with  suitable  sense-organs  of  nth  magni- 
fying power  the  imperceptible  reality  would  cease  to  be 
imperceptible ;  and,  as  Professor  Broad  will  have  it  that 
nothing  that  is  perceptible  is  real,  it  would  cease  to  be 
real.    The  real  on  this  view  is  the  potentially  unreal. 

And  when  it  comes  to  shape  and  size  yet  another 
question  arises :  Where  do  you  start  and  where  do  you 
stop?  What  is  your  unit  object  of  perception?  Are 
there  counterparts  shaped  like  Paris  hats  and  Empire 
sofas  and  Buckingham  Palace?  And  how  about  dis- 
tance? When  I  am  close  up  against  Buckingham  Palace 
I  can  only  see  a  portion  of  the  immense  faQade.  If  I 
stand  a  little  way  off  I  see  the  whole  of  it.  And  I  know 
the  Palace  has  a  back  and  wings  that  I  cannot  see.  Will 
there  be  counterparts  of  all  these  aspects  and  of  all  in- 
termediate aspects?  Will  there  be,  not  one  Bucking- 
ham Palace  but  many  Buckingham  Palaces? 

And  consider  the  Empire  sofa  and  the  Paris  hat,  and 
say  that  your  unit  of  perception  is  a  room  which  con- 
tains both  and  many  other  things  besides.  There  will  be 
counterparts  both  of  these  things  taken  singly,  when 
they  are  taken  singly,  and  of  all  together  when  they  are 


80  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

taken  together.  But  perceptions  do  not  possess  this 
departmental  character,  they  cannot  be  blocked  off 
from  each  other.  They  move.  They  suggest  at  every 
turn  the  old  image  of  the  cinema.  Is  there  a  separate 
counterpart  for  each  flicker  of  the  motion?  I  move  and 
I  take  in  more  details  as  I  go  along.  Is  there  a  counter- 
part of  each  phase  of  the  object  as  it  composes? 

And  supposing  the  unit  of  perception  is  as  much  as 
I  can  see  of  the  sky  on  a  starry  night  ?  Will  the  coun- 
terparts correspond  to  the  real  or  the  apparent  size  of 
the  heavenly  bodies  ? 

Talk  of  terrible  complications !  As  the  unit  of  per- 
ception is  incessantly  varying  with  distance  there  will 
be  as  many  units  as  there  are  possible  distances  and 
as  many  counterparts  as  there  are  units,  and  as  there 
are  atoms  in  each  unit.  Nobody  has  a  right  to  object 
if  this  really  is  so.  But  what  I  cannot  understand  is 
Professor  Broad's  throwing  over  the  comparatively 
innocent  instrumental  theory  because  of  a  few  poor 
little  ellipsoids  more  or  less,  and  cheerfully  entertain- 
ing all  that  multitude  of  counterparts.  If  he  says  I  am 
hopelessly  wrong,  and  that  it  is  the  object  of  tactual 
perception  only  that  is  the  unit  I  must  then  ask :  What 
is  the  unit  of  tactual  perception?  Surely  it  will  vary 
with  the  size  of  objects;  and,  as  I  have  pointed  out, 
large  sizes  are  not  given  to  it  all  at  once  but  bit  by  bit, 
and  there  should  be  as  many  counterparts  as  there  are 
bits ;  in  which  case  there  will  still  be  a  considerable  as- 
semblage of  counterparts.  And  isn't  it  really  rather 
odd  that  if  visual  and  tactual  perceptions  are  truly  cor- 
related one  should  give  you  absolute  size  and  the  other 
size  that  is  purely  relative  to  distance?  It  looks  as  if 
there  were  two  alternatives,  both  unpleasant  for  the 
realist:  either  that  the  two  perceptions  are  not  truly 
correlated  at  all,  or  that  neither  of  them  is,  in  the  real- 
ist's sense,  real. 


Ill  THE  CEITICAL  PREPARATIONS  81 

And  when  Professor  Broad  repeats  that  *  'in  all  prob- 
ability nothing  that  is  perceptible  is  real"  I  can  only 
wonder  again  why,  if  this  be  so,  he  is  at  such  pains  to 
make  his  unperceived  real  the  counterpart  of  the  per- 
ceived. 

And  I  cannot  see  that  his  theory  of  the  continuum 
solves  any  of  these  problems.  It  seems  to  me  in  one 
vital  respect  to  be  a  hindrance  to  him  rather  than  a 
help,  inasmuch  as  it  bridges  the  distance  between  the 
imperceptible  and  the  perceived,  thus  bringing  the  real 
elements  of  the  cosmos  into  the  category  of  the  unreal. 

I  see  no  tolerable  alternative  between  that  extreme 
but  consistent  realism  which  accepts  hospitably  the  im- 
mense multiplicity  of  ' '  given ' '  reals,  and  idealism  with 
its  sweeping  simplifications  along  the  whole  line.  We 
shall  see  later  on  whether  idealism  can  be  so  restated 
as  to  avoid  these  difficulties  and  dilemmas.  If  it  can  it 
will  have  provided,  if  not  a  better  description,  a  rather 
more  credible  explanation  of  the  facts. 

ii 

So  far  we  have  been  dealing  with  the  simple  relation 
of  perceiving  to  an  object  perceived,  in  which  the  ob-  pj.o. 
ject,  or  rather,  its  "counterpart"  is  the  ultimate  real-  fessor 
ity.    And,  so  far,  it  has  been  assumed  for  the  purposes  head 
of  theory  that  what  is  perceived  is  always  an  object,  ^^j.?J 
obligingly  present  in  space  and  time ;  in  other  words  of 
that  the  object  stands  still  to  be  stared  at.    This  theory    *     * 
presupposes,  or  should  presuppose,  a  ready-made  space 
and  time  for  the  object  to  stand  still  in,  which  therefore 
will  be  more  ultimate  than  it.    This,  on  a  realist  theory, 
without  prejudice  to  the  objective  reality  of  space  and 
time. 

Further,  any  realist  theory  which  assumes  this  static 
character  of  perception  and  the  object  perceived  so  far 
implies  a  dualism  between  perception  and  the  cosmos. 


82  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

Perception  will  not  be  an  event  within  nature ;  it  will 
stand  outside  it. 

Professor  Whitehead  ^  is  not  concerned  with  the 
problem  of  knowing  but  with  the  ultimate  elements  of 
the  thing  known,  of  ' '  nature  at  a  moment. ' '  But  nature 
in  its  ultimate  elements  does  not  stand  still  to  be  stared 
at.  "There  is  no  holding  nature  still  and  looking  at 
it."    The  ultimate  elements  are  not  objects  but  events. 

It  is  its  obstinate  traditional  habit  of  taking  objects 
first  and  events  after  as  something  happening  to  ob- 
jects in  time  and  space  which  has  landed  philosophy  in 
everlasting  difficulties  with  space  and  time.  Philosophy, 
intent  on  objects,  catching  its  object  first,  before  any 
event  can  get  to  work  on  it,  is  necessarily  saddled  with 
an  absolute  space  and  an  absolute  time  independent  of 
objects  and  events  and  independent  of  each  other;  a 
timeless  space  in  which  objects  stand  or  move,  a  space- 
less time  through  which  they  move  as  they  move 
through  space;  a  space  and  time  whose  accounts  can 
never  hope  to  balance,  inasmuch  as  all  space  stands  still 
at  any  one  instant,  while  no  one  instant  ever  stands 
still.  So  that,  not  only  must  all  space  occur  all  over 
again  with  every  instant,  but  you  can  whittle  away  time 
till  there  is  no  instant  left  for  space  to  occur  in,  and  you 
can  whittle  away  space  till  there  isn't  a  point  left  for 
time  to  cover.  It  is  clear  that  with  such  a  time  and  such 
a  space  any  real  point-instant  correspondence  is  im- 
possible, and  where  it  is  arbitrarily  assumed  you  have 
all  the  antinomies  that  have  rejoiced  idealists  from 
Zeno  's  time  till  now. 

But  Professor  Whitehead,  like  Professor  Alexander, 
denies  the  existence  in  nature  of  this  kind  of  space  and 
time,  while  unlike  Professor  Alexander,  he  denies  the 
ultimate  and  independent  existence  of  space  and  time 

*  Enquiry  Concerning  Principles  of  Human  Knowledge.  The  Concept 
of  Nature. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  83 

at  all.  Space  and  time  have  no  existence  apart  from 
what  happens  in  nature,  that  is  to  say,  from  events. 
They  have  no  existence  apart  from  each  other.  Space- 
less time  and  timeless  space  are  abstractions  from  the 
fundamental  unity  of  events. 

"Primarily  we  must  not  conceive  of  events  in  a  given  Time  or 
given  Space,  and  consisting  of  changes  in  a  given  persistent  ma- 
terial. Time,  Space  and  Material  are  adjuncts  of  events.  On  the 
old  theory  of  relativity  they  are  relations  between  the  materials, 
on  our  theory  they  are  relations  between  events." ' 

"Events  are  the  relata  of  the  fundamental  homogeneous  rela- 
tion of  extension  ..." 

"The  externality  of  nature  is  the  outcome  of  this  relation  of 
extension.  Two  events  are  mutually  external  or  'separate'  if  there 
is  no  event  which  is  part  of  both.  Time  and  space  both  spring  from 
the  relation  of  extension." 

"Time  and  space  express  relations  between  events.  Other  natural 
elements  which  are  not  events  are  only  in  time  and  space  derivatively 
by  reason  of  their  relation  to  events." 

"Events  (in  a  sense)  are  space  and  time,  namely,  space  and  time 
are  abstractions  from  events."  ' 

And  the  old  traditional  conception  of  matter  as  the 
ultimate  physical  reality  must  give  way  to  this  superior 
ultimacy  of  events.  Science  persists  in  regarding  mat- 
ter as  planted  securely  in  pre-existing  space  and  time. 
Its  assumption  is 

"the  outcome  of  uncritical  acceptance  of  space  and  time  as  ex- 
ternal conditions  for  natural  existence  .  .  .  first  philosophy  illegiti- 
mately transformed  the  bare  entity,  which  is  simply  an  abstraction 
necessary  for  the  method  of  thought,  into  the  metaphysical  sub- 
stratum of  these  factors  in  nature  which  in  various  senses  are  as- 
signed to  entities  as  their  attributes." 

And  next,  following  philosophy's  bad  example, 

"scientists  .  .  .  presupposed  this  substratum,  qua  substratum 
for  attributes,  as  nevertheless  in  time  and  space. 

This  is  surely  a  muddle.  The  whole  being  of  substance  is  as  a 
substratum  for  attributes.  Thus  time  and  space  should  be  at- 
tributes of  the  substance.  This  they  palpably  are  not,  since  it  is 
impossible  to  express  spatio-temporal  truths  without  having  recourse 
to  relations  involving  relata  other  than  bits  of  matter." 

'  Enquiry,  p.  26. 

'The  same,  pp.  61,  62,  63. 


84  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

Again : 

"It  is  not  the  substance  which  is  in  space,  but  the  attributes. 
What  we  find  in  space  are  the  red  of  the  rose  and  the  smell  of  the 
jasmine  and  the  noise  of  the  cannon.  We  have  all  told  our  dentists 
where  our  toothache  is.  Thus  space  is  not  a  relation  between  sub- 
stances but  between  attributes.   .    .    . "  ^ 

"The  true  relata  are  events." ' 

No  definition  could  well  be  plainer. 

Thus  on  this  theory  space  and  time  are  nothing  but 
relations;  and,  so  far  from  being  presuppositions  of 
experience  they  presuppose  the  events  they  relate. 
Strictly  speaking,  we  are  not  dealing  here  with  presup- 
positions, but  with  experience,  in  the  objective  sense, 
itself,  with  the  ultimate  entities  of  nature.  Professor 
Whitehead  gives  you  a  list  of  them. 

"i)  Events,  ii)  percipient  objects  iii)  sense-objects  iv)  perceptual 
objects  v)  scientific  objects."* 

It  is  clear  that  perception  will  be  primarily  concerned 

with  events  and  not  with  objects  and  that  objects  are 

to  be  carefully  distinguished  from  events.    Thus : 

"Objects  convey  the  permanence  recognised  in  events  and  are 
recognised  as  self-identical  amid  different  circumstances;  that  is 
to  say,  the  same  object  is  recognised  as  related  to  diverse  events. 
Thus  the  self-identical  object  maintains  itself  amid  the  flux  of 
events:  it  is  there  and  then,  it  is  here  and  now,  and  the  4t'  which 
has  its  being  there  and  here,  then  and  now,  is  without  equivoca- 
tion the  same  subject  for  thought  in  the  various  judgments  which 
are  made  upon  it."  * 

"The  object  is  permanent  because  (strictly  speaking)  it  is  with- 
out time  and  space;   and  its  change  is  merely  the  variety  of  its 
relations  to  various  events  which  are  passing  in  space  and  time." 
.   .    .  "objects  are  only  derivatively  in  space  and  time  by  means  of 
their  relation  to  events." ' 

"The  chief  confusion  between  objects  and  events  is  conveyed  in 
the  prejudice  that  an  object  can  only  be  in  one  place  at  a  time. 
That  is  a  fundamental  property  of  events."  * 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  pp.  20,  21. 
*The  same,  p.  24. 

'Enquiry,  p.   61. 

*  The  same,  pp.  62-63. 
»  The  same,  p.  63. 

'  The  same,  p.  65. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  85 

It  is  equally  clear  from  its  place  in  the  list  that  per- 
ception, so  far  from  standing  outside  nature  is  con- 
tained within  it  as  one  event  among  others. 

"The  essential  existence  of  the  event  here  present  is  the  reason 
why  percipience  is  from  within  nature  and  is  not  an  external  sur- 
vey." ' 

"The  percipient  event  is  discerned  as  the  locus  of  a  reco^isable 
permanence  which  is  the  percipient  object." ' 

And  this  is  as  near  as  Professor  Whitehead  will  allow 
us  to  get  to  a  subject,  a  mind.  The  "percipient  object" 
is  indeed  much  more  akin  to  a  body,  to  "the  natural 
Ufe  associated  with  one  consciousness,"  and  therefore 
definitely  within  nature  which  is  "closed  to  mind." 

In  the  percipient  event  recognised  sense-object  and 
apprehended  event  are  correlative  and  inseparable. 

"There  is  no  apprehension  of  external  events  apart  from  recog- 
nition of  sense-objects  as  related  to  them,  and  there  is  no  recog:nition 
of  sense-objects  except  as  in  relation  to  external  events."  * 

The  percipient  event,  then,  is  in  nature.     But  yet 

"Percipience  in  itself  is  taken  for  granted.  .  .  .  We  leave  to  meta- 
physics the  synthesis  between  the  knower  and  the  known."  * 

So  that,  though  the  percipient  event  is  in  nature,  per- 
cipience itself  is  something  beyond  nature,  with  which 
a  philosophy  of  nature  is  not  concerned.  All  the  same, 
in  making  some  statements  about  percipience  and  per- 
cipient events  this  philosophy  is  going  beyond  its  book, 
the  book  of  nature.  Nature  does  not  tell  us  whether 
the  percipient  event  is  inside  or  outside  it ;  and,  as  we 
shall  presently  see  when  we  come  to  consider  the  intel- 
lectual constructions  of  space  and  time,  thought  goes 
far  outside  nature's  book.  And  as  in  the  end  these  in- 
tellectual constructions  have  to  be  called  on  to  help  out 
the  four-dimensional  geometry  of  events,  any  philos- 

*  Enquiry,  p.  70. 

'  The  same,  p.  83. 
"  The  same,  p.  83. 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  28. 


86  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

ophy  of  nature  which  has  sworn  off  metaphysics  is  in 
an  awkward  case. 

But  these  adventures  of  thought  in  the  realm  beyond 
nature  are  another  story.  Professor  Whitehead's  prob- 
lem is  definitely  not  a  metaphysical  one.  What  he  is 
chiefly  concerned  with  avoiding  is  just  this  everlasting 
problem  of  knowing  and  the  knower.  We  may  object 
that  he  is  making  things  too  easy  for  himself  by  leaving 
it  out ;  but  he  is  perfectly  within  his  rights.  We  cannot 
be  reminded  too  often  that 

"No  perplexity  concerning  the  object  of  knowledge  can  be  solved 
by  saying  that  there  is  a  mind  knowing  it."  ^ 

Though  who  in  their  senses  ever  said  it  could  1  Ideal- 
ists may  protest  against  this  rude  summary  of  their 
position;  they  have  no  business  to  object  to  anybody's 
isolating  the  "object  of  knowledge"  for  examination, 
so  long  as  they  are  convinced  that  the  more  strictly  you 
isolate  and  the  more  thoroughly  you  examine  nature, 
the  more  surely  will  you  discover  nature 's  inadequacy, 
her  failure  even  to  provide  the  data  for  a  philosophy 
of  nature.  "Nature,"  Professor  Whitehead  says,  "is 
closed  to  mind,"  though  not  to  the  percipient  event; 
so  closed,  you  may  add,  that  thought  has  to  go  beyond 
nature  to  make  nature  intelligible. 

And  yet  Professor  Whitehead  protests  against  the 
"bifurcation  theory"  which  divides  nature  up  into 
' '  two  systems  of  reality, ' '  ^  nature  known  and  condi- 
tioned by  "the  by-play  of  the  mind,"  and  nature  un- 
known, the  mysterious  cause  of  knowing,  with  the  con- 
sequent split  between  primary  and  secondary  qualities, 
between  appearance  and  reality.    He  refuses 

"to  countenance  any  theory  of  psychic  additions  to  the  object 
known  in   perception.    .    .    . 

"This  dragging  in  of  mind  as  making  additions  of  its  own  to  the 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  28. 

*  The  same,  pp.  30,  31  et  seq. 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  87 

thing  posited  for  knowledge  by  sense-awareness  is  merely  a  way  of 
shirking  the  problem  of  natural  philosophy."  ^ 

And  this  cutting  out  of  mind  as  a  possible  contributor 
to  the  perceived  result  is  merely  a  way  of  shirking  the 
problem  of  knowledge.  And  observe  that  Professor 
Whitehead  has  no  sort  of  anxiety  about  the  incompati- 
bilities that  shake  naif  realism,  and  the  doubtful  status 
of  secondary  qualities.  On  his  theory — and  on  the 
idealist's — there  isn't  a  pin  to  choose  between  primary 
and  secondary  qualities. 

"We  may  not  pick  and  choose.  For  us  the  red  glow  of  the  sunset 
should  be  as  much  a  part  of  nature  as  are  the  molecules  and  electric 
waves  by  which  men  of  science  would  explain  the  phenomenon."  * 

"As  far  as  reality  is  concerned  all  our  sense-perceptions  are  in 
the  same  boat."* 

But  here  idealism  and  Professor  Whitehead  are  at 
issue — the  boat  is  nature's  boat  not  mind's.  Primary 
and  secondary  qualities  are  one,  not  because  they  are 
all  one  to  the  mind  that  perceives  but  because 

"there  is  but  one  nature,  namely,  the  nature  which  is  before  us 
in  perceptual  knowledge."  * 

Still  Professor  Whitehead  admits  that  some  sort  of 
case  can  be  made  out  for  the  bifurcation  theory  so  far 
as  it  is  based  on  the  assumption  of  absolute  time : 

"In  the  first  place  time  extends  beyond  nature.  Our  thoughts 
are  in  time.  Accordingly  it  seems  impossible  to  derive  time  merely 
from  relations  between  elements  in  nature."  .  .  .  "In  the  second 
place  it  is  difficult  to  derive  the  true  serial  character  of  time  from  the 
relative  theory.     Each  instant  is  irrevocable."  ' 

And  when  it  comes  to  the  "scientific  objects,"  the 
light-waves  and  the  electrons  and  the  agitated  mole- 
cules he  cannot  but  see  that  there  really  is  a  difficulty 
in  relating  these  with  colours  (for  example)  in  "the 

'  The  Concept  of  Nature,  pp.  29,  30. 
'  The  same,  p.  29. 

*  The  same,  p.  44. 

*  The  same,  p.  40. 
■  The  same,  p.  34. 


88  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

same  system  of  entities."  ^  It  cannot  be  done  *' Unless 
we  produce  the  all-embracing  relations, ' '  ^  which  by  the 
way,  rightly  or  wrongly,  is  what  idealism  has  always 
claimed  to  have  done.  But  for  the  moment  the  claims 
of  idealism  can  wait. 

These  all-embracing  relations  Professor  Whitehead 
finds  in  Time  and  Space. 

"The  perceived  redness  of  the  fire  and  the  warmth  are  definitely 
related  in  time  and  in  space  to  the  molecules  of  the  fire  and  the 
molecules  of  the  body."  * 

He  admits,  further,  that,  on  the  assumption  of  abso- 
lute space  and  time  the  bifurcation  theory  has  the  merit ! 
of  all-embracingness.  Absolute  space  and  time  bridge! 
the  gulf  between  appearances  and  causal  realities  by 
bringing  both  into  the  same  double  system  of  relations, 
and  thus  link  up  what  would  otherwise  fall  apart.  But 
his  objections  to  the  theory  cut  deeper  than  time  and 
space.    They  are  in  short,  three : 

"In  the  first  place  it  seeks  for  the  cause  of  knowledge  of  the 
thing  known  instead  of  seeking  for  the  character  of  the  thing 
known:  secondly  it  assumes  a  knowledge  of  time  in  itself  apart 
from  events  related  in  time :  thirdly  it  assumes  a  knowledge  of  space 
in  itself  apart  from  events  related  in  space."  * 

If  we  take  bifurcation  seriously  it  will  split  up  time 
and  space  themselves  into  the  real  and  the  apparent. 
Why,  if  we  make  this  great  division,  why  stop  at  space 
and  time? 

"Why — on  this  theory — should  the  cause  which  influences  the  mind 
to  perception  have  any  characteristics  in  common  with  the  effluent 
apparent  nature f  In  particular,  why  should  it  be  in  space?  Why 
should  it  be  in  time?  ... 

"The  transcendence  of  time  beyond  nature  gives  some  slight  rea- 
son for  presuming  that  causal  nature  should  occupy  time."  ° 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  44. 
» The  same,  p.  32. 

•  The  same,  p.  40. 
*The  same,  p.  39. 

»  The  same,  pp.  39-40. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  89 

For  the  mind  occupies  time.  But  the  mind  does  not 
occupy  space.  So  why,  if  you  bifurcate,  should  causal 
nature  occupy  space  ?  This  difficulty,  we  are  reminded, 
does  not  exist  for  science  which  seeks  only  "the  char- 
acter of  the  thing  known. ' '  Science  is  cutting  mind  out 
altogether. 

Now  if  you  cut  mind  out  altogether  it  is  clear  that 
you  have  indeed  got  rid  of  the  tiresome  responsibility 
of  adjusting  the  relations  of  mental  appearances  to  the 
relations  of  causal  nature.  In  seeing  red  if  you  cut 
mind  out,  you  have  only  to  account  for  the  emergence 
of  red  in  the  field  of  vision  and  are  only  concerned  with 
the  chain  of  physical  causation  which  leads  up  to  red 
and  not  beyond  it  to  perception. 

"Science  is  not  discussing  the  causes  of  knowledge  but  the  co- 
herence of  knowledge."  * 

And  according  to  realism  the  coherence  of  knowledge 
is  to  be  found  not  in  mind  but  in  nature  which  is  closed 
to  mind. 

We  have  seen  that  the  main  support  of  the  bifurca- 
tion theory  was  the  assumption  of  absolute  time  and 
absolute  space,  and  Professor  Whitehead's  argument 
suggests  that  bifurcation  suicidally  cuts  away  the 
ground  from  under  its  own  feet.  (And  again,  idealists 
for  opposite  reasons  will  agree.)  It  fares  still  worse 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  take  time  and  space  as  rela- 
tive. And  this,  on  the  first  blush  of  it,  looks  bad  for 
idealism,  which  has  hitherto  assumed  that  its  worst 
enemies  were  absolute  space  and  absolute  time,  as  be- 
stowing their  own  reality  on  objects  and  events  occur- 
ring in  them.  It  has  been  supposed  to  thrive  on  their 
relativity.  But  it  will  not  thrive  on  the  relativity  Pro- 
fessor Whitehead  offers  it.  Relativity  is  fatal  to  any 
idealism  which  clings  to  any  form  of  the  bifurcation 
theory.     It  destroys  the  space  and  time  which  were 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  41. 


90  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

common  to  causal  unperceived  nature  and  the  appear- 
ing nature  of  perception.  Time  and  space  will  depend 
on  the  relations  between  appearances,  they  will  be  re- 
lations between  appearances ;  and  you  will  have  to  as- 
sume another  space  and  another  time  relative  to  the 
events  in  causal  nature.  Idealism  can  only  afford  to 
say  Why  not!  if  it  can  show  these  events  themselves 
to  be  elements  in  some  supreme,  all-embracing  system 
of  consciousness. 

Now  the  single  crux  for  idealism  is  precisely  this  as- 
sumed existence  of  unperceived  causal  realities;  for 
idealism  can  make  nothing  of  reality  unperceived. 

But  the  character  of  the  unperceived  object  is,  as  we 
have  seen  ^  a  crux  for  realism  too.  And  here  again,  on 
the  event  theory,  after  all  its  elaborate  definitions  and 
correlations  which  build  up  the  concept  of  the  geomet- 
rical continuum,  our  first  contact  with  matter  intro- 
duces the  incurable  discreteness  which  met  us  on  the 
traditional  theory  of  space  and  time. 

The  material  object  appears  to  perception  as  contin- 
uous in  space  and  time,  and  according  to  science  is 
really  made  up  of  discrete  particles.  But  the  realist 
theory  of  perception  stands  on  the  axiom  that  objects 
are  what  they  appear  or  are  perceived  to  be.  How  does 
Professor  Whitehead,  having  named  this  difficulty,  get 
over  it? 

He  gets  over  it  by  his  theory  of  the  ultimate  character 
of  events.  In  the  case  of  a  material  object  we  have  a 
complex  consisting  of  the  appearance  of  the  object,  its 
"situation"  and  its  ''causal  character."  The  appear- 
ance is  thus  conceived  as  an  event  within  an  event. 
Obviously,  this  theory  avoids  any  contradiction  between 
appearance  and  reality  within  the  object,  while  allow- 
ing for  this  distinction  within  the  continuous  unity  of 
the  event  complex.    The  object,  that  is  to  say,  is  con- 

^  Above :  i,  pp.  52  et  seq. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  91 

ceived  as  real  and  permanent  in  the  stream  and  as 
shifting  the  responsibility  for  its  character  as  a  mere 
appearance  on  to  the  shoulders  of  the  event  which  is 
its  situation.  As  nature  is  never  standing  still  the  ob- 
ject will  always  be  in  some  situation,  there  will  always 
be  some  obliging  event  ready  to  hold  itself  responsible 
for  the  apparent  duplicity.  A  drop  of  water,  say,  is 
found  guilty  of  a  breach  of  continuity.  Professor 
Whitehead  says  we  must  distinguish  between  the  drop 
of  water  as  it  appears,  the  event  which  is  its  situation, 
and  ' '  the  character  of  the  event  which  causes  the  event 
to  present  that  appearance. ' '  ^ 

At  this  point  the  idealist  begins  to  suspect,  and  I 
think  to  suspect  rightly,  that  objects  of  perception  wdth 
their  inherent  contradictions  are  being  camouflaged  as 
events,  and  he  is  not  without  hope  that  their  eventual 
character  will  presently  disclose  contradictions  of  its 
own. 

We  shall  have  to  consider  the  single  crux  of  idealism 
later.-  Meanwhile  it  is  clear  that  for  realism  the  crux 
is  triple.  On  the  one  hand  the  incompatibility  between 
the  primary  and  the  secondary  qualities,  and  this 
whether  they  are  in  the  same  boat  of  reality  or  not; 
and  on  the  other  hand  the  absence  of  any  intelligible 
correspondence  between  the  perceptual  objects  and  the 
scientific  objects,  the  electrons,  the  light  waves,  the 
molecules ;  and  again,  between  all  these  and  conscious- 
ness. These  difficulties.  Professor  Broad  and  Professor 
Whitehead  would  remind  us,  do  not  exist  for  science 
which  has  no  use  for  secondary  qualities  and  ignores 
perception.  But  it  is  where  the  difficulties  of  science 
end  that  the  difficulties  of  philosophy  begin ;  and  if  is 
at  this  point  that  you  wonder  whether  even  a  philos- 
ophy of  nature  is  justified  in  simplifying  its  problem 
by  leaving  out  all  the  troublesome  factors.    Professor 

» Enquiry,  p.  183.  '  Below,  pp.  261-267. 


92  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

Whitehead  denies  that  they  are  factors,  and  if  the  way 
of  omission  and  denial  is  the  first  step  to  arriving  at 
the  clear  and  definite  concept  of  nature,  it  is  above  criti- 
cism. So  I  will  not  at  this  point,  raise  the  irritating 
and  irrelevant  question  of  consciousness,  of  the  syn- 
thesis between  perception  and  the  object  perceived,  let 
alone  the  synthesis  between  both  and  the  perceiver.  I 
will  merely  ask  whether  the  concept  of  nature  we  have 
so  far  arrived  at  is  really  adequate,  and  whether  it  is 
self-consistent. 

The  whole  problem  turns,  first  of  all,  upon  this  ques- 
tion of  adequacy. 

Professor  Whitehead  has  given  us  a  concept  of  na- 
ture, built  up  by  means  of  an  elaborate  and  perfect 
system  of  definitions,  so  clear  and  precise  in  its  main 
lines  that  there  is  no  excuse  for  any  failure  to  follow 
them. 

The  concept,  as  we  see  it  now,  sweeps  all  things  in 
nature,  all  events,  all  objects,  real  and  apparent  or 
frankly  delusive,  into  the  essentially  derivative  yet 
practically  all  embracing  net  of  time  and  space.  It 
presents  nature  as  an  endless  process  of  passing  events 
in  which  objects  alone  maintain  stability  and  perma- 
nence. It  regards  events  as  the  most  ultimate  of  all 
realities.  There  is  no  getting  behind  events.  It  trans- 
lates all  the  philosophy  of  nature  into  the  language  of 
events  and  of  relations  between  events.  Time  and 
space,  the  all-embracing,  are  so  far  from  ultimate  that 
they  exist  only  in  relation  to  events.  Events  create 
time  and  space  as  they  go  along.  Objects  are  only  in 
time  and  space  as  it  were  on  sufferance  by  reason  of 
their  connection  with  events.  In  the  language  of  events 
the  redness  of  a  red  object  is  "colour  in  a  situation," 
the  situation  being  determined  by  events  and  itself  de- 
termining the  character  of  the  object.  Thus,  a  '*real'* 
object  is  distinguished  from  a  delusive  object  by  the 


in  THE  CRITICAL  PRP^PARATIONS  93 

coincidence  of  its  ' '  situation ' '  with  its  cause,  a  fact  that 
we  express  when  we  say  that  the  object  is  really  out 
there  where  it  is  seen.  The  ambiguous  and  the  delusive 
object  have  their  situations  out  there  and  their  causes 
somewhere  else:  for  example,  the  image  I  see  in  the 
looking-glass  has  its  situation  there,  in  the  looking- 
glass  and  its  cause  in  some  object  behind  or  beside  me 
in  the  room ;  the  hallucination  I  see  in  the  room  has  its 
situation  there  and  its  cause  in  some  kink  in  my  optic 
nerve  or  cerebral  cortex. 

.  As  the  time  order  and  system  is  nothing  but  the  order 
and  system  of  events,  it  is  clear  that  there  will  be  as 
many  time  orders  and  time  systems  as  there  are  orders 
and  systems  of  events.  And  as  pure  time  is  a  baseless 
abstraction  apart  from  space,  and  pure  space  a  baseless 
abstraction  apart  from  time,  and  both  are  baseless  ab- 
stractions apart  from  events,  time  conceived  as  dura- 
tion, or  united  space-time,  will  have  the  thickness  of 
space.  Time  is  to  be  thought  of,  not  as  a  linear  series 
of  instants,  but  as  layers,  layers  formed  by  the  system 
of  events  enclosing  and  enclosed.  This  extension,  this 
snug  covering  that  time  and  space  acquire  through  their 
relation  to  each  other  and  to  events,  ensures  their  con- 
tinuity. It  forms  a  four-dimensional  stratified  contin- 
uum, in  which  time  is  the  fourth  dimension. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  concept  does  away  at  one 
stroke  with  all  incompatibilities,  disjunctions  and  an- 
tinomies. It  has  an  immediate  appeal  to  the  appetite 
for  philosophic  unity,  the  appeal  of  all  vast  and  sweep- 
ing simplifications.  It  is  at  first  sight  so  satisfying 
that  you  can  hardly  believe  it  possible  to  find  a  flaw  in 
it.  You  say  to  yourself,  Why  not  be  content  with  this 
concept?  It  is  so  all-embracing  in  its  relativity  as  to 
appease  even  the  lovers  of  the  Absolute.  Why  not  lie 
down  in  this  comfortable,  uncontradictious  philosophy 
and  be  at  peace  ?    There  is  nothing  damaging  to  honour 


94  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

in  this  repose ;  it  is  not  like  taking  the  brutal  assaults 
of  realism  lying  down.  Professor  Whitehead  is  not  as- 
saulting anybody ;  there  is  nothing  polemic  or  metaphy- 
sical about  him ;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  avoiding  the  bit- 
terness of  controversy  by  refusing  to  drag  in  mind. 
Almost  you  could  agree  with  him.  Why,  after  all,  worry 
about  perception?  Why  not  call  it  the  percipient  event 
and  have  done  with  it  ?  Something  has  to  be  taken  for 
granted,  and  you  can't,  on  any  theory,  account  for  con- 
sciousness any  more  than  you  can  account  for  nature. 
It  just  is,  and  nature  just  is,  and  by  far  the  most  com- 
prehensive thing  you  can  say  about  them  is  that  they 
are  both  events. 

And  the  most  comprehensive  thing  you  can  say  about 
events  is  that  they  are  in  space  and  time 

But  it  is  when  you  get  here  that  the  real  trouble  be- 
gins. Inveterately  you  conceive  events  as  in  space  and 
time.  If  space  and  time  are  to  be  adequate,  if  they  are 
to  do  their  work  as  the  required  all-embracing  relations 
— all  that  linking  up  and  unifying  business — you  must 
so  think  of  events,  and  events  must  be  as  so  thought  of. 
But  in  so  thinking  you  are  doing  what  Professor  White- 
head over  and  over  again  insists  that  you  are  not  to  do. 
You  have  ceased  to  think  in  terms  of  events  and  are 
thinking  back  again  in  the  old  tiresome  terms  of  space 
and  time  which  have  landed  philosophy  in  all  its  diffi- 
culties. 

But  observe  what  happens  if  you  obey  Professor 
Whitehead  and  think,  conscientiously  and  rigorously,  in 
terms  of  events.  Time  and  space  which  were  to  have 
been  the  all-embracing  relations,  cease  to  embrace. 
They  cannot,  on  the  theory,  embrace  events,  since  only 
by  and  in  events  do  they  themselves  come  into  being. 
That  is  to  say,  they  fail  to  embrace  the  better  part  of 
nature,  the  most  ultimate  realities  in  nature.    And  they 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  95 

cannot,  they  most  certainly  cannot  embrace  objects, 
since  objects  are  not  in  space  and  time,  or  are  only  de- 
rivatively in  space  and  time  through  their  "situation" 
in  events.  Therefore  they  fail  to  embrace  any  part  of 
nature.  And  if  I  may,  in  passing,  drag  mind  in,  they 
cannot  embrace  thought,  because  thought  goes  beyond 
nature,  goes  beyond  space  and  time.  Therefore  they 
cannot  embrace  anything  at  all.  They  are  phantoms, 
shadows  cast  by  events  in  their  passing. 

So  that  the  concept  of  nature  is  not  adequate  to  pro- 
vide those  all-embracing  spatial  and  temporal  relations 
it  promised  us,  and  we  are  left  with  events  embracing 
each  other  and  themselves,  and  objects  sitting,  perma- 
nent and  cold,  outside  this  intimacy. 

We  have  no  business  at  any  stage  to  demand  that  any 
philosophy  should  account  for  mind,  account  for  con- 
sciousness or  so  much  as  render  their  existence  plaus- 
ible, but  a  philosophy  which  goes  beyond  nature  (and  I 
cannot  see  how  a  complete  philosophy  can  well  stop 
there),  a  metaphysical  philosophy  must  demand  an  ac- 
count of  mind,  of  consciousness,  and  I  think  it  can 
hardly  be  contested  that  this  cannot  be  given  by  simply 
calling  consciousness  an  event  and  leaving  it  at  that. 
The  concept  of  nature  is  singularly  inadequate  here. 
And  we  have  not  yet  even  sighted  the  problem  of  ethics. 
But  again  I  am  reminded  that  we  have  no  business  to 
press  the  concept  of  nature  beyond  nature.  Enough  if 
we  have  seen  it  to  be  inadequate  in  its  own  realm. 

And  how  about  its  consistency  ?  The  consistency  of 
the  apparently  perfect  definitions  on  which  it  takes  its 
stand? 

Take  the  distinction  between  objects  and  events.  Ob- 
jects are  not  truly,  only  derivatively  in  space  and  time, 
yet  spatial  and  temporal  relations  were  brought  for- 
ward as  linking  up  all  objects,  whether  of  sense-percep- 


96  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

tion  or  of  science,  whether  delusive  or  non-delusive,  in 
a  unity. 

Objects  are  defined  as  permanent  structures  amid 
the  flux  of  events;  yet  objects  are  the  only  things  in 
nature  that  are  subject  to  change.  The  object  of  sense- 
awareness  and  perception  is  at  rest.  The  same  object, 
to  the  eye  of  science,  is  the  centre  of  profound  and 
secret  agitation. 

The  traditional  view  also  lifts  up  the  object  out  of 
the  stream  of  events  and  regards  it  as  an  eternal  per- 
manent thing,  fixed  in  the  block  of  consciousness,  which 
will  for  ever  stand  still  to  be  looked  at,  while  it  con- 
ceives events  as  streaming  away  from  the  object  on 
every  side.  But  it  puts  the  object  first  and  the  events 
after,  on  the  grounds  that  events  are  what  happens  to 
objects  and  that  an  object  must  be  there  first  for  them 
to  happen  to.  And  I  think  it  must  be  said  that  if  objects 
have  this  permanence  and  are  real  apart  from  percep- 
tion we  are  forced  to  regard  them  as  ultimate,  more 
ultimate  than  events.  Their  reality  confers  on  them 
this  ultimacy ;  an  ultimacy  that  they  lose  if  we  say  with 
idealism  that  perception  (in  which  I  include  memory) 
confers  on  them  their  reality. 

But  perception  also  takes  stock  of  the  events.  Things 
are  happening  to  the  object.  Something  changes.  The 
lump  of  sugar  is  dissolving  rapidly  in  my  tea-cup. 
Under  my  microscope  the  chrysalis,  in  its  golden  lat- 
ticed shell,  that  was  once  a  smooth,  greenish,  oval  body, 
began  to  put  out  buds  the  other  day.  To-day  it  has 
burst  its  shell  and  come  out,  a  slender  black  insect  with 
iridescent  wings.  Something  changes.  It  is  not  the 
event. 

"Events  never  change.  Nature  develops  in  the  sense  that  an  event 
e  becomes  part  of  an  event  e  which  includes  (i.  e.  extends  over  e 
and  also  extends  into  the  futurity  beyond  e.  .  .  .  Thus  we  say 
that  events  pass  but  do  not  change.  The  passage  of  an  event  is  its 
passing  into  some  other  event  which  is  not  it. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  97 

The  terms  past,  present  and  future  refer  to  events.  The  irrevoe- 
ableness  of  the  past  is  the  unchangeability  of  events."  ^ 

Then  what  changes  must  be  either  the  object  per- 
ceived or  the  perceiver  or  his  body.  Clearly,  in  the 
cases  of  the  lump  sugar  and  the  chrysalis,  it  is  not 
the  perceiver.  Therefore  it  is  the  object.  The  object 
then  has  this  twofold  contradictory  character  that  it  is 
the  one  permanent  thing  in  the  flux  of  events  and  that 
events  change  it  while  they  do  not  change.  As  far  as 
permanence  goes  events  and  objects  seem  to  have  ex- 
changed places. 

And  there  is  trouble  about  the  parts  of  objects.    It 

seems  that  a  leg  of  a  chair  is  not  really  part  of  the  chair. 

"Now  the  object  during  ten  seconds  is  not  part  of  the  object  dur- 
ing one  of  those  seconds.  The  object  is  always  wholly  itself  during 
ten  seconds  or  during  one  second.  It  is  this  train  of  thought  which 
led  to  the  introduction  of  the  durationless  instant  of  time  as  a 
fundamental  fact,  thus  fatally  confusing  the  whole  philosophy  of 
science." ' 

But  if  you  discriminate  between  the  object  and  its  situa- 
tion you  dissociate  it  from  its  time.  This  is  one  of  the 
senses  in  which  Professor  Whitehead  assumes  the  ob- 
ject to  be  not  in  time.    And  time  and  space  go  together. 

"The  derivation  of  space  and  time  by  the  method  of  extensive 
analysis  exhibits  the  essential  identity  of  extension  in  time  and  ex- 
tension in  space.  Thus  the  reasons  for  denying  temporal  parts  of  an 
object  are  also  reasons  for  denying  it  spatial  parts.  Again,  it  is  true 
that  the  leg  of  the  chair  occupies  part  of  the  space  which  is  occu- 
pied by  the  chair.  But  in  appealing  to  space  we  are  appealing 
to  relations  between  events.  What  we  are  saying  is  that  the  situa- 
tion of  the  leg  of  the  chair  is  part  of  the  situation  of  the  chair." ' 

But  it  is  not  part  of  the  chair.  This  is  the  sense  in 
which  Professor  Whitehead  denies  that  objects  occupy 
space.  Thus  the  leg  of  the  chair  is  only  part  of  the 
chair  as  it  were  on  sufferance,  by  right  of  its  place  in 
the  ''situation."  We  are  at  liberty  to  regard  the  leg 
as  one  object  and  the  chair  as  another  object. 

'  Enquiry  Concerning  the  Pri/nciples  of  Natural  Knowledge,  p.  62. 
'  The  same,  p.  91. 
'  The  same,  p.  92. 


98  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

And  thus  the  unity  of  the  object  disappears,  for  there 
will  be  as  many  objects  as  there  are  parts  of  the  situa- 
tion. It  disappears  in  the  multitude  of  its  parts  and  at 
the  same  time  it  is  said  to  have  no  parts.  It  is  not  even 
a  self -consistent  object. 

To  be  sure  what  you  lose  on  the  objects  you  gain  on 
the  events.    So  let  us  turn  to  the  events. 

To  begin  with  there  is  trouble  about  the  relations  of 
objects  to  events. 

"The  ultimate  natural  entities  are  events." 

As  we  have  seen,  it  is  hard  to  accept  this  concept  if 
objects  are  the  permanent  element  in  events;  if  they 
constitute  the  material  of  events.  Surely  it  is  to  be 
understood  that  to  ' '  convey  the  permanences  recognised 
in  events"  is  equivalent  to  being  an  "element  in"  or 
the  '^ material  of"  events.  But  apparently  we  are  not 
to  understand  this;  for  it  is  distinctly  stated  that  the 
two  types,  objects  and  events,  are  radically  distinct  and 
that  the  term  "element"  refers  only  to  products  within 
"any  one  mode  of  diversification  of  nature";  therefore 
one  type  or  mode  will  not  and  cannot  be  an  element  of 
any  other  type  or  mode.  So  how  are  we  to  understand 
this  essential  internal  relation  of  objects  and  events'? 

Again,  Professor  Whitehead  allows  objects  to  be  re- 
garded as  "qualities"  of  events.  So  that  they  cannot 
be  the  permanent  material  of  events;  and  even  if  we 
could  agree  that  events  must  needs  be  more  funda- 
mental and  ultimate  than  the  qualities  they  have,  the 
question  is  whether  we  can  regard  objects  as  of  this 
secondary  importance.  Mark  that  this  is  more  than 
a  mere  question  of  precedent  and  prestige ;  it  involves 
the  very  essence  of  these  entities.  For  Professor  White- 
head says  that  the  six  questions  Which?  What?  How? 
When?  Where?  Whither?  "reveal  that  what  is  ulti- 
mate in  nature  is  a  set  of  determinate  things,  each  with 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS  99 

its  own  relations  to  other  things  of  the  set,"  where 
among  '* things"  objects  are  clearly  included.  So  that 
we  start  not  knowing  which  really  is  ultimate  in  nature. 
Now  it  is  the  events,  now  it  is  the  objects,  and  again, 
and  over  and  over  again,  it  is  the  events.  But  the  very 
fact  that  the  six  questions  ''can  be  construed  as  refer- 
ring to  events  or  to  objects"  surely  points  to  a  com- 
munity in  six  relations  between  object  and  event.  How 
then  can  they  be  so  radically  distinct!  But  if  objects, 
through  their  situations,  may  be  said  to  take  part  in 
events — and  surely  they  may  1 — then  there  is  a  sense  in 
which  they  are  elements  in  events,  and  if  they  are  ele- 
ments community  would  follow  as  a  matter  of  course. 
Professor  Whitehead's  contention,  I  think,  is  (at  any 
rate  it  follows  from  his  theory)  that  this  depends  on 
the  events  and  not  on  the  objects.  It  is  the  events  that 
let  the  objects  in  for  the  community.  How  then  can 
objects  be  said  to  be  qualities  of  events?  Events  have 
no  substance  or  matter  to  support  qualities,  and  in  any 
case,  on  the  theory,  substance  or  matter  has  gone  by 
the  board ;  in  which  case  nothing  but  the  qualities  are 
left,  and  the  theory  will  not  admit  of  our  identifying 
events  with  their  qualities,  the  objects.  So  I  do  not  see 
how  and  in  what  sense  this  relation  is  to  be  established. 

And  how  can  an  object  not  in  space  and  time  have 
any  real  community,  even  derivatively,  with  events 
which  are  in  space  and  time?  How  can  events  extend 
beyond  their  time  and  space  to  rope  in  these  essentially 
spaceless  and  timeless  entities  ? 

Or  take  causal  relations.  Take,  scientific  objects ;  for 
example,  electrons.  They  are  said  to  "express  the 
causal  character  of  events."  (Observe  that  it  is  never 
the  object  in  itself  which  is  causal,  only  the  situation 
of  the  object,  the  events  which,  so  to  speak,  stream 
through  its  permanence.) 


100  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

"At  the  present  epoch  the  ultimate  scientific  objects  are  electrons. 
.  .  .  Events  related  to  a  definite  electron  are  called  the  field  of 
that  object.  The  relations  of  the  object  to  different  parts  of  the  field 
are  interconnected,  and  when  the  relationship  of  the  object  to  cer- 
tain parts  of  the  field  is  known  its  relationship  to  the  remaining 
parts  can  be  calculated. 

As  here  defined  the  field  of  an  electron  extends  through  all  time 
and  all  space,  each  event  bearing  a  certain  character  expressed 
by  its  relation  to  the  electron.  As  in  the  case  of  other  objects  the 
electron  is  an  atomic  unity  only  mediating  in  space  and  time  by 
reason  of  its  specific  relation  to  events."  ^ 

Now  how  can  an  object,  an  ultimate  object,  "express 
the  causal  character  of  events?"  The  object  in  itself 
is  never  causal.  It  must  wait  upon  events  before  ever 
it  can  have  or  be  in  a  "  situation. ' '  How  does  the  ulti- 
mate object,  the  atom  or  the  electron,  get  a  move  on  so 
as  to  express  a  causal  character?  More  fundamental 
than  the  object  is  the  event.  But  the  event,  I  take  it, 
has  not  yet  begun,  it  has  to  wait,  so  to  speak,  on  the 
electron. 

"The  field  is  divisible  into  two  parts,  namely,  the  'occupied' 
events  and  the  'unoccupied'  events.  The  occupied  events  correspond 
to  the  situation  of  the  physical  object." ' 

We  have  therefore  in  all  space  and  all  time,  which 
is  the  field  of  the  electron,  an  infinite  number  of  empty 
events,  of  possible  situations,  waiting-  for  their  physical 
objects  to  come  along  and  occupy  them.  Observe  that 
"unoccupied  event"  is  the  translation  of  empty  space- 
time  into  the  language  of  events  by  which  we  seem  to 
avoid  this  difficulty  of  object  before  and  event  after; 
and  we  must  allow  the  theory  the  full  advantage  of  this 
rendering. 

"The  unoccupied  events  possess  a  definite  character  expressive 
of  the  reign  of  law  in  the  creative  advance  of  nature,  i.  e.,  in  the 
passage  of  events.  This  type  of  character  of  events  unoccupied 
by  the  electron  is  also  shared  by  the  occupied  events.  It  expresses  the 
role  of  the  electron  as  an  agency  in  the  passage  of  events.  In  fact 
the  electron  is  nothing  else  than  the  expression  of  certain  recog- 
nisable features  in  this  creative  advance." ' 

*  Enquiry,  p.  95. 
'  The  same,  p.  96. 
'  The  same,  p.  96. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         101 

I  take  it  that  we  are  to  understand  by  this  that  the 
* '  unoccupied  events ' '  are  those  events  in  which  the  elec- 
tron has  not  yet  played  its  part,  but  which  are  strictly 
determined  by  the  ascertained  part  it  has  played,  in 
accordance  with  the  laws  of  nature.  Again,  this  is  a 
translation  of  the  concept  of  the  uniform  behaviour  of 
electrons  in  terms  of  events. 

In  terms  of  events,  observe,  to  avoid  the  traditional 
concepts  of  space,  time  and  matter.  We  must  stick  to 
the  translation,  for  we  shall  miss  all  the  implications 
of  Professor  Whitehead's  theory  if  we  revert  to  the 
original  corrupt  text.  But  observe,  also,  the  double  part 
played  by  the  electron.  It  is  expressly  stated  to  be  an 
"agency  in  the  passage  of  events."  Thus  its  causal 
character  is  declared  at  the  same  time  that  its  char- 
acter as  object  ("the  expression  of  certain  permanent 
recognisable  features")  is  insisted  on.  No  doubt  once 
an  electron  always  an  electron;  but  how  can  an  object 
be  at  once  a  cause  and  not  a  cause  ? 

And  this  affair  of  the  electron  is  more  complicated 

still.    Hitherto  we  have  been  considering  one  electron, 

and  events  as  occupied  or  unoccupied  by  it.    But  an 

event  not  occupied  by  one  electron  will  be  occupied  by 

another  electron  and  the  translation  will  be  continued 

thus: 

"The  character  of  event  e  which  it  receives  from  electron  A, 
which  does  not  occupy  it,  is  one  of  the  influences  which  govern  the 
change  of  electron  B  which  does  occupy  e  into  the  occupation  of 
other  events  succeeding  e.  The  complete  formula  of  change  for  B 
can  be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  complete  character  which  e  receives 
from  its  relations  to  all  the  electrons  in  the  universe." 

Here  we  have  the  translation  of  electrons  passing 
through  space  and  time  in  terms,  not  of  space  and  time 
and  matter,  but  of  pure  events.  It  must  be  admitted 
that  the  translation  has  the  immense  advantage  of  sim- 
plification and  comprehensiveness.  Translated  back 
into  the  old  terms  of  space  and  time  and  matter,  you 


102  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

would  have  physical  objects  hurtling  through  pre-exist- 
ing space  in  fore-ordained  time  and  in  such  a  manner 
that  if  space  and  time  be  taken  as  absolute,  at  any  in- 
stant the  object  will  be  stationary  in  space,  thus  part- 
ing with  the  event  character  of  its  motion.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  space  and  time  be  taken  as  relative,  matter  it- 
self will  be  infected  with  that  relativity  and  lose  its 
alleged  character  as  the  causal  ultimate. 

The  question  is  whether  precisely  the  same  thing  has 
not  happened  to  the  events,  whether  the  formula  in 
terms  of  events  does  not  involve  contradictions  every 
bit  as  bad  as  any  that  the  traditional  view  was  landed 
in. 

Take  events  themselves.  Events  do  not  change,  they 
pass.  They  are  and  are  not.  "An  event  is  what  it  is, 
when  it  is  and  where  it  is."  Definite  demarcation,  all 
or  nothingness,  is  the  essential  character  of  events. 
Thus  events  take  on  that  hard  quality  of  exclusiveness 
which  characterised  the  points  of  absolute  space,  the 
instants  of  absolute  time.  Their  demarcation  seems  in- 
compatible with  their  continuity.  If  events  are  as  self- 
contained  as  all  that,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  one  event 
can  extend  over  another,  or  how  any  duration  which  is 
the  time  of  events  can  enclose  or  be  enclosed  by  another, 
or  how  one  event  can  cause,  condition  or  influence  an- 
other. If  an  event  which  has  passed  has  passed  utterly, 
if  neither  it  nor  any  particle  of  it  is  to  be  thought  of  as 
somehow  continuing  in  the  event  it  has  influenced,  con- 
ditioned or  caused,  the  old  antinomies  of  space  and  time 
have  broken  out  again  transferred  to  events.  We  are 
faced  with  endless  breaches  in  the  continuity  of  events. 

The  theory  of  duration  is  presented  here  as  saving 
the  continuum. 

"The  continuity  of  nature  arises  from  extension.  Every  event 
extends  over  other  events,  and  every  event  is  extended  over  by  other 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         103 

events.    Thus  .    .    .  every  duration  is  part  of  other  durations;  and 
every  duration  has  other  durations  which  are  parts  of  it."  * 

We  must  think  of  time  in  vertical,  not  linear  exten- 
sion, in  stratified  durations,  because  it  is  space-time,  in 
other  words,  event-time  we  are  dealing  with.  Dura- 
tions are  stratified  thus : 

"A  pair  of  durations  both  of  which  are  part  of  the  same  duration 
are  called  parallel,  and  also  a  pair  of  moments  such  that  there  are 
durations  in  which  both  inhere  are  called  parallel."  * 

Again : 

"A  complete  time-system  is  formed  by  any  one  family  of  parallel 
durations.  Two  durations  are  parallel  if  either  (i)  one  includes 
the  other,  or  (ii)  they  overlap  so  as  to  include  a  third  duration 
common  to  both,  or  (iii)  are  entirely  separate.  The  excluded  case 
is  that  of  two  durations  overlapping  so  as  to  include  in  common 
an  aggregate  of  finite  events,  but  including  in  common  no  com- 
plete duration."* 

If  you  think  of  this  in  terms  of  time  only  it  is  mean- 
ingless. If  you  think  of  it  in  terms  of  linear  extension 
it  is  meaningless.  You  must  think  of  it  in  terms  of 
events,  events  piled  one  on  the  top  of  the  other.  It 
means  that  events  do  not  follow  one  another  in  a  single 
linear,  past,  present,  future  series  with  point-instant 
correspondence  in  a  procession  that  has  but  one  start- 
ing point ;  but  that  they  form  a  system  or  systems,  and 
there  will  be  as  many  parallel  layers  as  there  are  events 
contained  in  one  duration. 

But  in  spite  of  the  extreme  precision  of  these  defini- 
tions it  is  not  easy  to  see  within  a  given  duration  what 
actual  durations  would  be  parallel  and  what  would  not. 
Take,  for  example,  the  duration  of  my  day.  The  dura- 
tion of  my  working  times  (10  a.  m.  to  1.30  p.  m.,  and 
5.30  p.  m.  to  7.30  p.  m.),  and  the  durations  of  my  meal 
times  (8.30  to  9  a.  m.,  1.30  p.  m.  to  2  p.  m.,  5  to  5.15 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  59. 
^Enquiry,  p.  113. 

^  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  190.  The  same  rules  apply  to  families  of 
durations,  p.  59. 


104  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

p.  m.  and  8  to  8.45  p.  m.)  are  "parts  of  the  same  dura- 
tion ' '  which  is  my  day ;  yet  so  far  from  being  parallel 
they  are  successive ;  they  fit  into  alternate  places  in  the 
completed  order  of  my  day;  and  I  cannot  conceive  of 
their  spatial  character,  the  fact  that  one  order  of  events 
goes  on  in  my  dining-room  and  the  other  in  my  study, 
as  altering  this  character  of  successiveness.  It  is  clear 
that  such  orders  of  events  within  a  duration  are  not  the 
parallels  we  should  be  thinking  of.  Nor  do  they  seem 
to  belong  to  the  excluded  case  (iv). 

For  ' '  two  moments  which  are  not  parallel  necessarily 
intersect."  And  there  is  no  moment  of  my  working 
times  that  anywhere  intersects  or  is  intersected  by  any 
moment  of  my  meal  times — so  long  as  I  do  not  work 
when  I  am  eating — therefore  it  would  seem  that  my 
working  and  my  eating  times  must  belong  to  dif- 
ferent time  systems.  Yet  they  are  all  covered  by  the 
duration  of  the  event  which  is  my  day.  I  am  puzzled 
by  this  double  character  of  successiveness  and  enclo- 
sure. And  I  am  driven  to  conclude  that  these  parallels 
are  only  to  be  found  in  any  two  orders  of  events  going 
clean  through  any  two  durations  within  the  same  dura- 
tion, and  of  an  equality  such  that  their  starting  points 
and  their  end  points  respectively  will  be  covered  by 
the  same  moment.  The  selection  of  starting  point  and 
end  point  will  be  purely  arbitrary  for  any  two  orders 
of  events  in  any  given  slice  of  observation;  but  what 
is  a  starting  point  or  an  end  point  for  one  must  be  a 
starting  point  or  end  point  for  the  other 

I  think  this  must  be  so,  because  otherwise  we  should 
have  no  hold  on  events,  we  shall  be  dealing  with  serial 
event  orders  which  may  outrun  the  limits  of  our  cover- 
ing duration  at  either  end,  and  we  shall  have  to  stretch 
this  duration  so  as  to  cover  their  unequal  starting  and 
end  points,  which  may  again  extend  beyond  the  in- 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         105 

creased  duration,  and  with  this  game  of  event-durations 
we  shall  never  have  done. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  we  insist  on  the  one  starting- 
point  for  all  pairs  of  parallels  within  the  one  time- 
system  we  are  back  again  in  the  old  tradition  of  the 
point-instant  correspondence  and  "all  nature  at  an  in- 
stant"; and  though  all  nature  at  an  instant  is  never 
given  in  sense-awareness,  we  know  very  well  that  be- 
yond our  sense-awareness  all  nature  at  an  instant  is 
there. 

And  I  do  not  see  that  the  difficulties  are  avoided  by 
substituting  events  which  are  space  and  time,  events 
which  are  durations,  for  spaceless  times  and  timeless 
spaces,  and  event-particles  for  point-instants,  however 
fitly  the  distinction  expresses  the  timefulness  of  space 
and  the  spacefulness  of  time.  For  the  essential  char- 
acter of  an  event  is  that  it  is  a  definite  thing  marked 
off  from  all  other  events ;  and  this  differentiation  can- 
not be  purely  qualitative  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  spaceless 
and  timeless  objects;  for  events  do  not  change,  they 
pass,  one  moment  they  are  and  the  next  moment  they 
are  not,  and  they  are  to  be  distinguished  from  objects 
by  precisely  this  property  and  by  the  fact  that  one  event 
cannot  occupy  two  spaces  at  the  same  time.  Indeed  an 
event  never  can  occupy  two  spaces  at  any  two  times,  for 
the  moment  it  occupies  another  space  at  another  time 
it  is  no  longer  the  same  event  but  another.  "Events 
are  what  they  are,  when  they  are,  where  they  are." 
True,  the  actual  presence  of  the  event  will  extend  over 
some  duration;  but  this  must  surely  be  in  such  sort 
that  the  event  ends  with  its  duration  and  is  succeeded 
by  another  event  in  another  duration.  And  what  ap- 
plies to  durations  and  events  will  apply  to  moments  and 
event-particles. 

So  that  we  are  faced  again  with  the  old  problem  of 


106  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

"nextness"  and  succession.  All  that  has  happened  is 
that  we  are  dealing  with  events  and  durations,  that  is 
to  say  with  extensions  instead  of  points  and  instants ; 
but  as  between  event  and  event,  or  one  event-particle 
and  another,  there  will  be  breaches  of  continuity. 
Breaches  that  you  cannot  hope  to  fill  by  means  of  the 
Cantor-Dedekind  compact  series ;  for  I  think  you  cannot 
say  that  between  any  two  events  or  event-particles 
there  is  an  infinite  number  of  events  or  event-particles. 
An  event  and  every  part  of  an  event  is  essentially  finite 
and  qualitative,  and  as  such  will  not  admit  of  infinite 
stuffing,  though  durations  may. 

Nor  can  I  see  that  the  covering  of  one  duration  by 
another,  the  extension  of  one  event  over  another,  really 
ensures  continuity,  as  long  as  you  assume,  and  you 
certainly  have  to  assume,  differentiation  between  events 
and  durations.^ 

The  symbol  of  this  continuity  is  the  ' '  Chinese  toy, '  ^ 
the  set  of  smaller  and  smaller  boxes  packed  one  inside 
the  other,  except  that  in  the  event-continuum  there  is 
no  smallest  box.  Its  diagram  is  a  system  of  enclosed 
and  enclosing  squares  converging  to  a  central  point,  and 
the  packing  is  indeed  so  tight  and  the  layers  enclosing 
the  ultimate  point  so  thick  that  for  a  moment  you  are 
juggled  into  believing  that  you  have  here  an  indubitable 
continuum.  It  is  only  when  you  translate  the  hiero- 
glyphics of  the  diagram  back  again  into  the  original 
language  of  events  that  you  perceive  that  continuity 
there  can  be  none.  For  one  thing,  events  have  to  be 
taken,  so  to  speak,  in  the  rough ;  they  are  not  entirely 
surrounded;  they  do  not  really  converge  to  a  points 
The  point  is  an  ideal  limit. 

"It  is  evident  that  an  abstractive  set  as  we  pass  along  it  con- 
verges to  the  ideal  of  all  nature  with  no  temporal  extension,  of  all 

^  Professor  Whitehead  calls  this  assumption  ' '  an  arbitrary  postulate 
of  thought. ' '  I  cannot  think  why  ' '  arbitrary. ' '  If  ever  there  was  a 
necessary  postulate 


in  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         107 

nature  at  an  instant.    But  this  ideal  is  in  fact  the  ideal  of  a  non- 
entity." ' 

But  the  point  at  the  narrow  end  is  not  more  ideal 
than  the  limit,  the  square  at  the  other  end  of  the  scale, 
the  all-enclosing,  unenclosed  event.  When  you  consider 
seriously  these  two  ends  open  to  the  infinite  and  the 
ideal,  where  space  and  time  must  either  cease  or  con- 
tain and  be  contained  for  ever,  you  begin  to  wonder 
whether  the  whole  construction  is  not  ideal  without  any 
application  to  actual  events.  It  can  only  apply,  so  far 
as  it  applies  at  all,  to  all  nature  at  an  instant  which  is 
never  given  in  sense  awareness,  and  was  dismissed  as 
an  intellectual  abstraction.  For  nature  is  enlarging 
her  temporal  borders  moment  by  moment ;  the  two  ends 
of  the  system  of  squares  are  open  to  the  past  and  to 
the  future.  In  vain  you  build  up  your  system  of 
squares;  nature  outruns  your  building.  In  vain  you 
dovetail  time  into  space  and  space  into  time.  Nature 
forges  ahead,  putting  out  more  and  more  events  into 
the  ever  appearing  present  which  was  once  her  future, 
throwing  back  more  and  more  events  into  her  past. 

To  be  sure,  in  a  mathematician 's  head  and  in  a  dia- 
gram on  paper,  a  continuum  is  achieved  in  the  sense 
that  serial  time  is  vanquished  for  a  moment.  Between 
the  squares  that  contain  and  the  squares  that  are  con- 
tained there  is  no  such  solution  of  continuity  as  would 
exist  were  all  the  squares  unpacked  and  ranged  in  a 
row  side  by  side.  They  are  all,  as  William  James  would 
have  said,  "snug  in  their  own  skins."  That  is  to  say 
they  would  be  if  this  containing  process  left  them  any 
skins  to  be  snug  in.  Events  have  to  be  well  skjnned 
to  fit  into  the  system.  For  if  you  admit  the  skin  you 
admit  the  boundary  line,  and  between  boundary  line 
and  boundary  line  is  as  bad  as  between  point  and  point. 
And  since  you  are  dealing  with  actual  finite  and  par- 

^  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  61. 


108  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

tially  qualitative  events  and  event-particles  you  have 
not  the  resource  of  introducing  infinities.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  you  delete  the  boundaries  you  have  one  un- 
bounding  and  unbounded  event  which  is  the  very  defi- 
ance and  negation  of  the  principle  at  stake. 

And  all  the  time  nature  is  rolling  on  and  on  in  a  past, 
present  and  future  process  that  fairly  cries  out  for 
serial  time. 

It  is  only  when  any  section  of  the  process  is  past 
that  the  mathematician,  wantonly  abstracting  from  it 
all  that  was  passing  and  successive,  can  telescope  the 
events  in  it  one  inside  the  other  and  in  fancy  see  them 
as  containing  and  contained.  I  do  not  mean  to  suggest 
that  his  procedure  is  not  perfectly  legitimate  in  its  way, 
nor  do  I  want  to  deny  that  nature  presents  to  sense- 
awareness  a  rough  and  ready  appearance  of  continuity; 
that  is  to  say,  sense-awareness  cannot  find  a  break.  I 
do  not  mean  that  there  is  any  better  way  of  regarding 
nature  at  any  given  moment  of  awareness,  but  I  do  in- 
sist that  there  is  no  way  of  conjuring  continuity  out  of 
a  series,  even  a  vertical  or  stratified  series,  of  events, 
and  that  Professor  Whitehead's  way  only  succeeds  be- 
cause of  the  surreptitious  introduction  of  the  very  last 
factor  he  would  desire  to  admit — the  factor  of  con- 
sciousness. 

This  is  what  comes  of  taking  events  for  ultimate 
realities  and  flying  to  them  for  a  continuum.  Why, 
even  the  comparatively  despised  perceptual  object  does 
more  for  the  mathematician  than  that.  It  at  least  does 
stand  still  to  be  stared  at.  If  we  did  not  know  its  secret 
life  of  infinite  change  and  agitation,  its  apparent  per- 
manence might  suggest  a  kind  of  continuity  in  space 
and  time.  But  here  again,  if  the  object  does  not  exist 
in  space  and  time  its  continuity  will  not  help  the  prob- 
lem where  it  is  now. 

We  have  seen  that  the  event-duration  theory  ends  by 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         109 

throwing  us  back  on  "the  ideal  of  a  non-entity.'*  It 
would,  therefore,  seem  that  the  concept  of  nature  con- 
tains a  fundamental  contradiction  somewhere.  I  do  not 
know  whether  Professor  Whitehead  would  deny  the 
contradiction  on  the  grounds  that  nature  is  one  thing 
and  its  concept  another,  or  on  what  grounds  he  would 
deny  it.  The  fact  remains  that  a  contradiction  between 
nature  and  its  concept  is  a  contradiction  within  the 
whole  of  reality  which  is  nature  and  thought  taken  to- 
gether. I  cannot  see  that  realists  have  any  business  to 
say  that  there  isn't  any  such  whole  of  reality,  seeing 
that  it  is  implied  in  any  discussion  of  ultimate  concepts. 

We  must  then  have  either  a  complete  dualism  be- 
tween nature  and  thought,  or  a  dualism  between  nature 
and  the  concept  of  nature  within  the  "whole  of  reality; 
and  if  reality  is  to  be  a  whole  this  is  regrettable. 

And  in  the  long  run  Professor  Whitehead  agrees  that 
**the  concept  of  the  properties  of  nature  at  an  instant 
...  is  fundamental  in  the  expression  of  physical  sci- 
ence"; so  that  once  more  we  have  the  deliverances  of 
sense-awareness  contradicting  the  deliverances  of  sci- 
ence, which  once  more  is  an  awkward  position  for 
realism. 

But  we  have  not  yet  done  with  serial  time. 

Serial  time  is  stated  to  be  the  result  of  ''an  intellec- 
tual process  of  abstraction."  (We  may  wonder  how 
the  intellect  contrives  to  abstract  from  events  what  was 
not  in  them  already. )  It  has  been  said  previously  that 
''each  element  of  the  series  exhibits  an  instantaneous 
state  of  nature,"  but 

"This  serial  time  is  not  the  very  passage  of  nature  itself.  The 
state  of  nature  'at  a  moment'  has  evidently  lost  this  ultimate 
quality  of  passage."  * 

So  that  between  a  state  of  nature  and  nature 's  pass- 
ing we  have  a  temporal  contradiction.    And  again,  "the 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p,  65. 


110  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

lapse  of  time  is  a  measurable  serial  quantity. ' '  We  can- 
not juggle  away  the  serial  quality  of  time  by  calling  it 
an  intellectual  abstraction.  These  difficulties,  however, 
are  not  created  by  Professor  Whitehead  who  gets  over 
them  by  denying  the  priority  and  independence  of  time, 
and  distinguishing  between  the  event-time  of  nature's 
passing  and  the  passing  of  abstract  serial  time. 

"We  have  first  to  make  up  our  minds  whether  time  is  to  be 
found  in  nature  or  nature  is  to  be  found  in  time.  The  difl&culty  of 
the  latter  alternative — namely  of  making  time  prior  to  nature — 
is  that  thus  time  becomes  a  metaphysical  enigma."  ^ 

(The  idealist  would  say  that  that  is  precisely  what 

time  is.) 

"The  dissociation  of  time  discloses  to  our  immediate  perception 
that  the  attempt  to  set  up  time  as  an  independent  terminus  for 
knowledge  is  like  the  effort  to  find  substance  in  a  shadow.  There 
is  time  because  there  are  happenings  and  apart  from  happenings 
there  is  nothing." " 

The  trouble  is  that  in  the  long-run  we  have  to  recog- 
nise that 

"there  is  a  passage  of  sense-awareness  and  a  passage  of  thought. 
Thus  the  reign  of  the  quality  of  passage  extends  beyond  nature." 

And  we  have  to  distinguish  here  between  "passage" 
which  is  ** fundamental"  and  "the  temporal  series 
which  is  a  logical  abstraction. ' '  And  so  it  turns  out  that 

"...  time  in  the  sense  of  a  measurable  temporal  series  is  a  char- 
acter of  nature  only  and  does  not  extend  to  processes  of  thought 
and  of  sense-awareness  except  by  the  correlation  of  these  processes 
with  the  temporal  series  implicated  in  their  procedures."  * 

I  am  not  quarrelling  with  the  facts,  but  we  may  as 
well  notice  that  measurable  serial  time,  which  a  while 
back  was  said  to  be  "not  the  passage,  the  very  pass- 
age of  nature  itself,"  is  now  declared  to  be  "a  char- 
acter of  nature  only."  Yet  the  character  of  nature  is 
passage. 

^  The  Concept  of  Nature,  pp.  65-66. 
'  The  same,  p.  66. 
'  The  same. 


in  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         111 

Moreover  the  time  in  which  thought  passes  extends, 
as  thought  extends,  beyond  nature,  so  that  all  time  can- 
not be  swept  into  nature's  flux  of  events  or  nature's 
durations ;  and  thus  time  is  not  an  intellectual  abstrac- 
tion. The  consideration  of  memory  complicates  the 
question  further. 

.  .  .  "the  mere  fact  of  memory  is  an  escape  from  transience.  In 
memory  the  past  is  present.  .  .  .  Accordingly  memoiy  is  a  dis- 
engagement of  mind  from  the  mere  passage  of  nature;  for  what 
has  passed  for  nature  has  not  passed  for  mind.'" ' 


If  4 


We  have  now  seen  the  inadequacy  and  the  inconsist- 
ency of  the  concept  of  nature  that  refuses  to  drag  in 
mind.  And  we  have  reached  the  point  where  mind  re- 
fuses to  be  left  out  any  longer,  where  it  obtrudes  itself 
in  spite  of  all  the  well-guarded  defences  of  realism.  We 
have,  after  all,  to  include  in  the  philosophy  of  nature  as 
an  ultimate  entity  the  time  of  mind  which  extends  be- 
yond nature,  and  to  deny  any  place  beyond  nature  to 
measurable  serial  time,  for  all  it  was  said  to  be  an 
intellectual  abstraction,  since  the  processes  of  nature 
are  measurable  and  calculable  in  time.  And  yet  the 
time  we  measure  and  calculate  by  cannot  be  the  space- 
time  which  events  are,  for  Nature  cannot  measure  her- 
self. It  is  a  mind-time  which  events  conform  to,  and 
so  far  as  they  conform,  and  so  far  as  this  time  is  a 
''character  of  nature,"  nature  is  not  "closed  to  mind." 
What  is  more,  it  has  become  increasingly  noticeable 
that  the  very  definitions  of  the  ''percipient  event"  pre- 
suppose a  certain  psychical  limit.  We  are  dealing  al- 
ways with  nature  as  observed  and  there  are  limits  to 
our  observation.  And  a  psychical  limit,  I  submit,  is 
every  bit  as  bad  as  a  "psychical  addition"  for  a  philos- 
ophy of  nature  which  is  rigorously  excluding  mind. 
Take  for  example  the  psychical  standard  of  duration : 

"Our  observational  'present'  is  what  I  call  a  duration."  .  .  .  "The 
duration  as  a  whole  is  signified  by  that  quality  of  relatedness  (in 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  68. 


112  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

respect  of  extension)  possessed  by  the  part  whieh  is  immediately 
under  observation;  namely,  by  the  fact  that  there  is  essentially  a 
beyond  to  whatever  is  observed.  I  mean  by  this  that  every  event 
is  known  as  being  related  to  other  events  which  it  does  not  include 
.  .  .  exclusion  is  as  positive  a  quality  as  inclusion."  ^ 

Note  that  exclusion  is  of  space — all  the  things  in  na- 
ture which  we  don't  have  under  observation — and  of 
time,  all  the  things  in  nature  which  have  not  happened 
for  us ;  all  the  things  which  both  for  us  and  for  nature 
haven't  happened  yet. 

Now  if  percipience  is  an  event  in  nature,  that  is  to 
say,  in  the  nature  of  the  realist  which  is  independent  of 
percipience,  anticipation  of  the  future  is  impossible  and 
meaningless.  Memory  is  both  impossible  and  meaning- 
less. For  both  memory  and  anticipation  are  forms  of 
perception  with  a  change  of  tense,  and  perception  can- 
not jump  outside  nature  to  perceive  the  things  which 
for  nature  have  passed  and  for  nature  have  not  yet 
begun. 

Again,  if  perception  is  in  nature  it  can  never  tran- 
scend nature  at  any  moment ;  it  can  never  transcend  the 
stretch  of  nature  which  it  has  under  observation  at  any 
moment ;  yet  in  order  to  grasp  that  stretch,  above  all, 
in  order  to  make  that  distinction  between  perception, 
or  if  Professor  Whitehead  prefers  it,  between  '*  percip- 
ient event"  and  object  perceived,  that  distinction  which 
is  vital  to  realism,  it  must  transcend  nature  from  mo- 
ment to  moment.  If  this  distinction  is  not  given  in  per- 
ception, for  realism  it  is  never  given. 

"We  observe  nature  as  extended  in  an  immediate  present  which 
is  simultaneous  but  not  instantaneous,  and  therefore  the  whole  which 
is  immediately  discerned  or  signified  as  an  inter-related  system 
forms  a  stratification  of  nature  which  is  a  physical  fact." 

We  have  already  seen  what  happens  between  strati- 
fications. We  have  seen  that  by  knocking  out  point- 
instants  we  have  not  got  rid  of  discontinuity;  it  crops 

*  The  Concept  of  Nature,  p.  186. 


in  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         113 

up  again  between  durations.  And  here  it  is  at  last  im- 
possible to  exclude  consciousness  from  the  problem. 
Consciousness  emerges  as  the  controller  of  these  strati- 
fications. That  is  to  say,  the  * 'percipient  event"  is  the 
measure  of  the  ''observational  present"  which  is  na- 
ture 's  ' '  here-now. ' '  Nature  in  any  ' '  here-now ' '  can  be 
no  less  and  no  more  than  what  perception  can  take  in 
at  one  bite.  It  is  events  with  their  rhythm,  their  vibra- 
tion that  bring  discontinuity  in,  while  consciousness 
covers  the  events,  consciousness  slides  from  duration 
to  duration  without  a  break.  It  and  it  alone  provides 
the  continuity  discerned  in  nature.  It,  or  rather  the 
enduring  self  behind  it,  is  the  continuum.  Beside  the 
steady  stare  of  consciousness  events  quiver,  you  can 
almost  hear  the  tick-tick  of  their  passing. 

May  not  the  truth  be  that  events  as  distinguished 
from  objects,  space  as  distinguished  from  time,  and 
both  as  distinguished  from  events,  reality  as  distin- 
guished from  appearance,  and  nature  as  distinguished 
from  thought  are  all  abstractions  from  the  continuous 
unity  of  some  all-embracing  self?  Even  finite  selves 
confer  unity  and  continuity  on  nature  as  far  as  they 
go,  though  their  consciousness  is  closed  to  the  greater 
part  of  reality. 

And  there  were  those  contradictions.  We  have  seen 
the  twofold  contradictory  character  of  objects  on  the 
realist  event  theory.  I  do  not  see  how  we  are  to  believe 
that  a  real  object,  independent  of  perception,  of  the 
form  of  consciousness,  could  have  this  twofold  contra- 
dictory character.  Let  us  look  at  it  again.  If  the  per- 
manent object  and  its  change  or  changes  are  not  one 
object  but  two  or  more  objects,  the  object  hasn't 
changed,  and  each  successive  state  of  the  object  will 
constitute  a  literally  different  object.  But  we  can't  say 
this,  for  this  is  what  holds  good  of  events.  And  events 
are  the  very  stuff  of  our  experience. 


114  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

"Events  are  lived  through;  they  extend  around  us.  They  are 
the  medium  within  which  our  physical  experience  develops."  ^ 

I  hope  I  am  not  confusing  the  question  by  an  ambigu- 
ous use  of  the  word  ' '  experience ' ' ;  what  I  mean  is  that 
to  part,  at  any  rate,  of  our  perceptions  the  object  is  pre- 
sented, not  clean  and  separate,  but  immersed  in  events. 
Even  when  we,  so  to  speak,  take  it  up  to  look  at,  it  still 
drips  with  the  stream.  There  will  be  a  stage  of  percep- 
tion when  it  will  be  both  isolated  and  yet  dripping.  And 
I  repeat,  we  cannot  think  of  a  real  object,  there  on  its 
own  account,  as  thus  permanent  and  separate  and  at 
the  same  time  undergoing  change  and  dripping. 

But  suppose  with  idealism  that  the  object  only  exists 
when  and  as  it  is  perceived  or  recognised?  Suppose 
that,  as  regards  this  particular  contradiction,  the  du- 
plicity is  in  our  consciousness,  and  that  the  changing, 
eventful  object  is  the  object  perceived  and  remembered, 
and  the  permanent,  unchanged  object  is  the  object  rec- 
ognised and  conceived?  We  shall  not  have  accounted 
for  change  or  for  passing,  we  shall  not  have  solved  all 
the  contradictions  in  the  concepts  of  space-time  and  of 
objects  and  events,  but  at  least  we  shall  have  pointed 
the  way  towards  a  possible  solution. 

iii 

Realism  in  its  later  stages  has  become  self -critical. 
It  has  learned  that  its  postulates  are  hard  to  reconcile 
Critical  with  the  fact  that  our  senses  give  us  conflicting  evi- 
dence, that  physical  objects  are  not  perceived  as  they 
really  are,  and  that  their  ultimate  nature,  as  disclosed 
by  science,  affords  no  explanation  of  their  appearances. 
Critical  Realism  is  aware  that  these  are  downright 
serious  matters  very  much  in  the  way  of  a  realistic 
theory  of  perception. 

Unlike  new  realism,  it  is  not  extremist.    It  does  not 

^Enquiry,  p.  63. 


The 


ni  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         115 

turn  the  whole  content  of  consciousness  out  of  doors. 
On  the  contrary,  it  draws  a  curious  and  very  interesting 
distinction  between  the  content  and  the  object.  The 
content,  the  ' '  datum, ' '  what  is  immediately  before  con- 
sciousness, is,  the  critical  realists  say,  never  the  ob- 
ject itself,  but  always  an  ''image,"  the  logical  essence" 
by  means  of  which  the  object  is  perceived.^  Thus  there 
is  no  direct  perception  of  objects  such  as  both  naif 
and  new  realism  assume.  The  essence  is  the  mediator 
between  the  god-like  inaccessibility  of  the  object  and 
the  perceiving  mind.  It  is  as  much  the  instrument  of 
perception  as  the  bodily  organism,  and  is  as  little  to  be 
confused  with  the  perceptual  object  itself. 

The  essence  is  expressly  stated  to  be  not  an  existent, 
either  in  the  sense  in  which  the  object  is  existent  out 
there  in  space,  or  in  any  other  sense.  It  is  to  be  care- 
fully discriminated  from  the  ' '  mental  state ' '  which  is 
its  ''vehicle."  The  mental  state  has  the  status  of  an 
existent  like  any  object,  except  that  I  suppose  it  would 
be  said  to  be  "here"  in  consciousness  and  not  "out 
there"  in  space.  The  pure  sense-elements  of  percep- 
tion are  existents  and  not  essences;  they  are  mental 
states,  contributions  of  the  mind,  "secondary"  qual- 
ities with  which  it  "clothes"  the  objects  of  perception. 

There  are  some  distinctions  that  simplify  the  prob- 
lem of  knowledge,  and  there  are  some  that  obscure  and 
complicate  it.  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  distinctions  of 
critical  realism  are  of  the  simplifying  and  clarifying 
kind.  We  shall  see  that  on  this  theory,  though  some 
bad  difficulties  are  avoided,  the  whole  business  of  per- 
ception becomes  extremely  queer.  We  are  no  longer 
troubled  with  contradictory  witnesses  to  reality,  since 
the  sole  "data"  of  perception  are  the  essences,  quality 

*  Essays  in  Critical  Realism',  by  Durant  Drake,  Arthur  C.  Lovejoy, 
James  Bissett  Pratt,  Arthur  K,  Kogers,  George  Santayana,  Roy  Wood 
Sellars,  C.  A.  Strong. 


116  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

groups  which  have  their  own  inalienable  character,  are 
not  existents  and  therefore  do  not  challenge  the  ob- 
jects on  that  ground;  since  the  objects  do  not  come  into 
consciousness  at  all  and  since  we  may  suppose  that  the 
sense-elements  do  not  "witness"  to  anything.  Thus 
compared  with  the  objects  the  essences  are  frankly  in- 
door, subjective  affairs.  Their  status  is  as  safe  from 
irrelevant  comparison  as  on  any  idealistic  scheme.  We 
have  no  incompatible  existents.  Incompatibilities  only 
arise  as  between  existences  in  space  and  time,  and  the 
essences  have  no  such  existence. 

Not  that  critical  realists  are  agreed  as  to  their  pre- 
cise status.  Professors  Drake,  Santayana,  Rogers  and 
Strong  maintain  that  the  datum,  which  is  always  to  be 
discriminated  from  "the  mental  state  which  is  the 
vehicle  of  its  givenness,"  is  not  an  existent  "represent- 
ing the  object," 

"it  is  .  .  .  simply  the  essence  or  character  (the  what)  of  the 
object  known." 

And  always  the  mental  states  are  existents.  They 
may  "give"  mental  traits,  feeling  traits  to  the  char- 
acter-complex of  the  datum.  While  to  Professors  Sel- 
lars,  Lovejoy  and  Pratt  the  datum  is 

"in  toto  the  character  of  the  mental  state  of  the  moment,  and  so 
is  an  existent,  though  its  existence  is  not  'given'."  ^ 

But  these  differences  need  not  concern  us. 

Professor  Drake  -  trains  all  the  old  arguments  from 
incompatibility  on  naif  and  new  realism  alike  with 
deadly  effect.    The  position  of  critical  realism  is  that 

"the  existent  at  a  given  point  of  space  at  a  given  time  never 
has  more  than  one  set  of  compatible  qualities." ' 

Then  what  about  the  alleged  incompatibles  f  Profes- 
sor Drake  will  not  admit  that  they  arise  from  differ- 

^  Essays  in  Critical  Realism,  The  Approach  to  Critical  Bealism,  pp.  4, 
20,  21. 
'  The  same,  p.  4. 
*  The  same,  p.  16. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         117 

ences  in  relations.  Each  supposed  incompatible  is  a 
downright  quality.  It  is  what  it  appears  to  be.  But 
these  qualities  do  not  compete  with  one  another  on  the 
same  plane.  That  is  to  say,  of  two  alleged  incompat- 
ibles  one  may  be  a  mere  feeling  or  sensation,  which  is 
part  of  the  "mental  state"  of  the  perceiver,  therefore 
a  subjective  existent ;  the  other  may  be  part  of  the  qual- 
ity group,  the  logical  essence,  which  is  really  what  the 
object  is.  It  is  clear  that  on  this  theory  we  are  not 
dealing  with  two  incompatible  existents,  both  qualities 
of  the  object.  Professor  Drake  is  not  so  admirably 
precise  on  this  point  as  he  is  everywhere  else;  but  I 
think  all  this  may  be  gathered  from  his  theory  as  a 
whole. 

So  far,  so  good.  It  is  when  we  come  to  consider  the 
relation  of  the  essences,  the  not-existent  data  of  per- 
ception to  the  existing  object  that  we  realise  that  we 
are  not  much  safer  than  we  were  before.    The  data 

"are  character  complexes  (=  essences)  irresistibly  taken,  in  the 
moment  of  perception,  to  be  the  character  of  existing  outer  objects."  * 

When  we  ask  what  guarantee  we  have  that  they  are 
the  character  of  objects,  since  they  are  all  we've  got, 
we  are  told  that 

"There  never  is  a  guaranty  in  the  moment  of  perception  that 
they  really  are  the  characters  of  any  outer  existent." 

The  guarantee  is  a  purely  pragmatic  one. 

"Our  instantaneous  (and  practically  inevitable)  belief  in  the 
existence  of  the  physical  world  about  us  is  pragmatically  justifiable. 
.  .  .  This  little  realm  of  Appearance  (i.  e.  what  appears,  what  is 
'given')  might  conceivably  be  merely  the  vision  of  a  mind  in  an 
empty  world.  But  we  instinctively  feel  these  appearances  to  be  the 
characters  of  real  objects.  We  react  to  them  as  if  they  had  an  ex- 
istence of  their  own.  .   .    .  Everything  is  as  if  realism  were  true."* 

This  is  meant  to  show  that  we  are  not  the  victims 
of  a  series  of  subjective  hallucinations.    As  we  have 

^  The   Approach  to   Critical  Bealism,   pp.   5-6. 
•The  same,  p.  20. 


118  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ra 

seen,  the  essences  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  my 
mental  states.  The  states  are  existents  and  the  data 
are  not.  (As  we  shall  see  presently,  Professor  Strong 
counts  secondary  and  tertiary  qualities,  sensations  and 
feelings,  as  might  be  spots  of  blue  and  fits  of  temper,  as 
states  equally  mental,  thus  introducing  a  further  com- 
plication. And  I  gather  that  all  critical  realists  agree 
with  him.)  The  mental  existents  ''make  possible  the 
appearance  of  the  essence. "  If  we  go  and  call  the  data 
existents  we  shall  be  bestowing  existence  on  our  hal- 
lucinations, for  there  are  hallucinatory  data.  Delusion 
consists  in  imagining  that  these  exist  ''out  there.'* 

Here  again,  in  this  matter  of  hallucination,  I  find 
critical  realism  disappointing.  For  the  real  datum, 
the  "character  complex"  is  on  the  same  footing  of  not 
existing  out  there. 

"What  is  the  critical  realist  going  to  do  about  it? 

He  flies  to  "imagination."  The  character-complex 
of  the  hallucinatory  object  is  imagined  as  out  there, 
and  we  falsely  imagine  it  as  existent  out  there.  The 
character  complex  of  a  really  existent  object  is  imag- 
inary too,  only  in  this  instance  we  rightly  attribute  it 
to  a  real  existent. 

''These  imagined  character-complexes  are  our  data.  Usually  some 
of  the  traits  of  the  character-complex  are  real,  some  are  merely 
imaginary.  But  whether  really  true  or  not  they  are  never  found 
there  by  a  sort  of  telepathic  vision,  but  are  imagined  there  by  a 
mind." ' 

And  you  gather  that  it  depends  merely  on  the  quality 
of  the  imagination  (plus  our  possible  reactions) 
whether  they  shall  count  as  genuine  data  or  no.  Thus 
perception  is 

"a  sort  of  imagination — vivid,  controlled,  involuntary  imagina- 
tion, which  is  to  some  extent  veridical." ' 

But  veridical  to  what  extent  and  in  what  instances 

'  The  Approach  to  Critical  Eealism,  p,  23. 
"  The  same. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         119 

we  have  no  exact  means  of  knowing.  And,  really,  on 
the  theory,  we  have  no  means  of  knowing  at  all.  Imag- 
ination is  at  once  the  snspect,  the  witness  and  the  judge ; 
we  have  no  other. 

Critical  realism  distinguishes,  much  as  Locke  and  the 
old  tradition  distinguished,  between  primary  and  sec- 
ondary qualities.  It  accepts  '  ^  the  general  verdict  which 
hold  that  only  the  primary  perceptual  qualities  are  lit- 
eral characters  of  objects,"  and  it  maintains  that 

''in  so  far  as  perception  gives  us  accurate  knowledge,  it  does  so 
by  causing  the  actual  characteristics  of  objects  to  appear  to  us.  The 
objects  themselves,  those  bits  of  existence,  do  not  get  within  our 
consciousness.  Their  existence  is  their  own  affair,  private  and  in- 
communicable." ^ 

This  is  all  very  well ;  but  as  most  primary  qualities, 
shape,  size,  extension  and  motion,  are  specially  dis- 
tinguished by  their  spatial  and  temporal  relations,  it 
is  hard  to  see  what  their  characteristics  can  have  in 
common  with  logical  essences  expressly  stated  to  be 
not  existent,  to  have  no  relations  in  space  and  time. 
A  queer  sort  of  literalness,  this. 

Again,  Professor  Drake  says: 

"Identical  essences  can  be  'given'  by  means  of  very  varying 
mental  states.  A  vivid  sensation,  a  faint  sensation,  a  memory, 
a  conceptual  state  can  be  vehicles,  at  different  times,  by  which  one 
and  the  same  essence  can  be  'given'."  * 

Now,  how,  on  the  theory,  can  you  possibly  tell  that  it 
is  one  and  the  same?  How  can  you  make  your  leap 
from  existent  state,  to  not-existent  essence?  And  how 
can  essences  be  '^ given"  by  qualities  which  do  not 
belong  to  them?  There  is  no  sense  in  which  the  sec- 
ondary qualities  of  the  mental  states  can  be  said  to 
belong;  since  the  essence  is  the  group  of  primary  qual- 
ities from  which  secondary  qualities  have  been  ex- 
cluded. 

^  The  Approach  to  Critical  Realism,  pp.  23-24. 
'  The  same,  pp.  27-28. 


120  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

This  theory  of  essence  compels  us  to  take  our  com- 
plex data  as  part  existent  and  part  not-existent,  part 
mental  and  part  non-mental,  which  is  what  Professor 
Drake  said  (rightly,  I  think,)  we  were  not  to  do.  That 
was  on  page  twelve.    On  page  thirty  he  says : 

"we  live  in  the  presence  of  .  .  .  hybrid  objects — existences  really 
there,  but  clothed,  in  our  mind's  eye,  with  the  qualities  which  our 
mental  states  put  into  them.  Our  data  are  characters  which  may  be 
said  to  be  projected.  .  .  .  Not  actually  projected  .  .  .  but  simply 
supposed  to  be  out  there,  'imagined'  out  there  .  .  .  common  sense 
takes  it  for  granted  that  they  are  out  there  and  has  never  grappled 
with  the  difficulty  of  how  they  are  revealed  if  they  are  there,  or 
what  their  status  is  if  they  aren't  there."  * 

And  again  it  is  hard  to  see  how  you  "grapple"  with 
the  difficulty  by  saying  the  projection  is  imagined  and 
by  presenting  the  content  of  knowledge  as  the  means 
to  it.  You  might  as  well  identify  our  percepts  with  the 
physical  apparatus  of  perception.  If  the  content  of 
consciousness  is  the  content  what  more  do  we  want! 
If  it  isn't,  if  it  is  only  the  means  to  knowledge,  what 
knowledge  have  we  got  ?  Only  the  mental  state  remains 
indubitably  existent  and  indubitably  known.  What 
could  subjective  idealism  wish  for  more  ? 

Professor  Pratt's  theory  does  not  differ  essentially 
from  Professor  Drake's.  He  evidently  thinks  that 
the  main  objections  to  it  are  that  it  involves  transcend- 
ence and  that  it  makes  perception  indirect. 

Idealists  will  not  quarrel  vdtla  it  on  the  score  of  trans- 
cendence. The  real  trouble  is  that  it  offers  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  perceptual  object  a  logical  essence,  which 
according  to  Professors  Drake,  Santayana,  Eogers  and 
Strong  is  non-mental  and  not-existent,  and  according 
to  Professors  Pratt,  Lovejoy  and  Sellars  is  the  total 
character  of  an  existent  mental  state ;  a  substitute  which 
is  not  really  projected  but  imagined  as  out  there  where 
the  object  is.     Thus  we  have  absolutely  no  criterion 

^  The  Approach  to  Critical  Eealism,  pp.  27-28. 


ni  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         121 

for  judging  that  our  imaginations  correspond  with  re- 
ality, and  no  grounds,  other  than  pragmatic,  for  sup- 
posing the  existence  of  any  object  at  all.  And,  really, 
those  pragmatic  grounds — How  ccm  the  mere  fact  that 
we  find  it  convenient,  that,  in  the  consecrated  phrase 
of  pragmatism,  it  "works"  to  assume  reality,  justify 
us  in  assuming  a  reality  unperceived,  unproved  and 
otherwise  unwarranted?  A  working  hypothesis  in 
the  field  of  experience  is  one  thing,  and  a  pragmatic 
hypothesis  carried  into  the  field  beyond  experience  is 
another.  For  the  pragmatic  test,  the  fitness,  the  con- 
venience of  working,  are  all  part  of  my  experience, 
my  perceptual  content,  and  have  no  application  to  the 
beyond.  My  reactions  prove  nothing.  When  I  see  my 
53'  'bus  coming  along  to  Piccadilly  Circus  and  adapt 
my  movements  to  its  decreasing  rate  of  movement  and 
to  its  final  position  of  rest,  with  reference  to  the  curb, 
when,  in  other  words  I  catch  my  'bus,  the  'bus  and  its 
movements  and  the  curb  and  the  Circus  and  my  body 
and  its  movements  are  all  part  of  the  content  of  my  con- 
sciousness at  the  moment,  and  afford  in  themselves,  no 
possible  grounds  for  the  assumption  of  a  "real"  'bus 
and  a  "real"  Circus  outside  consciousness.  The  reac- 
tions of  my  fellow  passengers,  do,  I  admit,  appear  to 
give  grounds ;  this  is  a  difficulty  for  idealism  which  I 
hope  to  dispose  of  in  its  proper  place,^  merely  remark- 
ing that  these  manifestations  of  other  people  are  also 
part  of  the  content  of  my  consciousness  as,  indeed,  my 
manifestations  are  of  theirs.  But  this  is  not  a  prag- 
matic relation.  In  the  logic  of  pragmatism  the  a 
posteriori  cart  draws  the  a  priori  ontological  horse. 

To  return  to  Professor  Pratt.  After  showing  very 
clearly  that  the  percept  is  all  the  datum  we've  got, 
and  that  the  percept  is  not  the  object,  he  goes  on  to 
say  that  we  do  not  "see"  the  percept,  but  the  object, 

*  See  below,  Space,  Time  and  Other  Consciousnesses,  pp.  245-259. 


122  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

and  that  we  see  it  by  means  of  the  percept :  "the  object 

of  perception  is  the  object  of  perception."    In  seeing 

my  friend, 

"He  is  the  object  of  my  sight.  I  do  not  see  my  percept  of  him; 
I  see  him,  and  I  do  so  by  means  of  my  percept."  * 

That  is  to  say  the  object  is  never  directly  perceived, 
since  it  is  an  outside  existent,  and  the  percept  is  never 
perceived  since  it  is  the  means  of  perceiving,  yet  the 
percept  is  the  datum,  the  given  content  of  perception, 
and  yet  by  means  of  this  unperceived  content  I  per- 
ceive !  It  may  be  so,  but  if  I  have  nothing  to  go  on  but 
this  imaginary  content  I  shall  never  know  it.  I  am 
shut  up  with  my  apparatus  of  essences  and  have  no 
grounds  for  assuming  an  object  outside  them.  There 
is  no  sense  in  which  I  can  be  said  to  see  or  be  in  any 
way  conscious  of  that  object.  And  if  I  am  not  allowed 
to  perceive  my  own  percepts  it  is  hard  to  say  what  I 
do  perceive. 

Percepts,  Professor  Pratt  says, 

"are  simply  my  means  of  perceiving  and  thoughts  my  means  of 
thinking,  just  as  the  voice  is  my  means  of  speaking;  to  insist  that 
I  cannot  perceive  a  red  house  because  I  have  to  perceive  it  by  means 
of  my  percept  is  like  insisting  that  I  cannot  hear  the  organ  because 
I  can  only  hear  the  sound,  or  that  I  cannot  say  'Boo'  because  I 
have  to  say  it  with  my  voice." ' 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  some  confusion  here.  I 
do  not  perceive  by  means  of  my  percept  in  the  same 
sense  that  I  speak  by  means  of  my  voice.  In  speaking 
by  means  of  my  voice  I  am  not  affirming  the  objective 
existence  of  voices,  I  am  simply  making  noises  which 
are  the  recognised  symbols  of  existents  other  than 
voices,  and  in  every  respect  unlike  them.  But  in  per- 
ceiving by  means  of  my  percept  I  am  supposed,  on  the 
theory,  to  be  affirming  the  existence  of  objects  in  all 
respects  so  similar  to  or  correspondent  with  my  per- 

*  The  Possibility  of  Knowledge  (Essays  in  Critical  Bealism),  p.  103. 

*  The   Bame,   p.   104. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         123 

cepts  that  I  am  said  to  perceive  the  very  objects  them- 
selves. And  I  contend  that  from  the  character  of  the 
data  at  my  disposal  I  have  no  business  to  affirm  any- 
thing of  the  sort. 

Again,  ' '  to  insist  that  I  cannot  perceive  a  red  house 
because  I  have  to  perceive  it  by  means  of  my  percept" 
is  not  at  all  on  all  fours  with  ' '  insisting  that  I  cannot 
hear  the  organ  because  I  hear  only  its  sound."  For 
in  the  case  of  the  percept  we  have  nothing  "given" 
corresponding  to  organ,  while  in  the  case  of  the  organ 
we  have  all  its  other  perceptual  qualities  associated 
with  its  sound. 

Professor  Pratt  admits  the  fallibility  of  knowledge 
obtained  by  means  of  the  apparatus  of  images. 

("The  ultimate  nature  of  reality  in  itself  may  be  very  difficult,  or 
even  impossible  to  discover") ; 

and  he  pleads  that  our  actual  knowledge  is  precisely 
in  this  case.  But  all  that  critical  realism  has  done, 
so  far,  is  to  complicate  this  problem  of  knowledge  fur- 
ther by  duplicating  it  with  the  old,  clumsy  machinery 
of  ''images";  the  only  justification  for  this  proceed- 
ing being  the  guarantee  of  a  corresponding  reality — a 
guarantee  which  is  admitted  to  be  impossible.  There 
is  no  sort  of  use,  on  any  realistic  theory,  for  all  this 
imaginary  scenery  rigged  up  between  consciousness 
and  reality. 

Nor  does  Professor  Santayana,  in  his  Three  Proofs 
of  Realism  carry  us  much  further.  He  holds  the  bal- 
ance between  two  extremes,  the  "minimum"  and 
"maximum"  of  realism,  the  mere  innocent  "presump- 
tion that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  knowledge"  and 

"the  assurance  that  everything  ever  perceived  or  thought  of 
existed  apart  from  apprehension  and  exactly  in  the  form  in  which  it 
is  believed  to  exist."  * 

The  problems  for  critical  realism  are  two :  one  of  the 

^  Three  Proofs  of  Eealism  (Essays  in  Critical  Eealism),  p.  163. 


124  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

independent  and  separate  existence  of  the  object;  one 
of  the  "literalness  and  adequacy"  of  knowledge.  The 
problem  of  existence  is  concerned  with  appearance  and 
that  underlying  reality  to  which  Professor  Santayana 
boldly  restores  its  old  name  of  "substance."  This 
involves  relations;  so  that  the  problem  of  existence 
splits  off  into  two  problems :  one  concerning  the  ' '  exis- 
tence" and  "conditions"  of  substance  and  appearance; 
the  other  concerning  the  degree  of  "similarity"  be- 
tween them ;  to  which  the  answer  of  the  realist  tends  to 
be  that ' '  their  existence  is  quite  distinct  and  their  con- 
ditions entirely  different," 
and  that 

"the  similarity  is  great  and  may  even  rise  to  identity  of  es- 
sence." ^ 

As  we  have  seen,  the  critical  realist  complicates 
his  problem  gravely  by  the  introduction  of  essences. 
He  has  in  the  long-run  to  admit  that  some  appearances 
at  any  rate  are  not  similar  to,  much  less  identical  with, 
the  underlying  reality  (if  you  go  back  as  far  as  "the 
scientific  object,"  a  colour  is  not  similar  to  a  light-wave 
nor  a  sound  to  an  aerial  vibration),  so  that  he  is  further 
saddled  with  the  old  distinction  between  primary  and 
secondary  or  tertiary  qualities.  Even  if  you  take  the 
primary  qualities  only  to  be  essences  (the  secondary 
and  tertiary  being  "mental  states"),  you  cannot  say 
that  they  resemble  the  ultimate  physical  realities. 

Centreing  round  substance  and  appearances,  then, 
there  will  be  two  * '  perfectly  consistent  and  truly  com- 
plementary" tendencies  in  critical  realism: 

"the  one  tends  to  separate  appearance  from  substance  only  in 
existence;  the  other  tends  to  identify  them  only  in  essence"; 

The  truth,  according  to  Professor  Santayana,  being 
that  they  are  strictly  correspondent  and  mutually  de- 
pendent : 

^  Three  Proofs  of  Realism  (Essays  in  Critical  Bealism),  p.  165. 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         125 

"they  hang  together  and  reflect  one  another  like  a  poet  and  his 
works.  Only  if  arrested  and  isolated  would  the  material  world  and 
the  bodily  life  of  animals  seem  not  to  involve  sensation  and  thought 
and  not  to  be  involved  in  them.   .    .    ."^ 

And  once  more  we  ask :  what  criterion  have  we,  what 
guarantee  that  the  appearances  of  sensation  and  of 
thought,  if  separate  from  substance  in  existence,  are 
identical  with  it  in  essence?  Even  if  the  unperceived 
''material  world  and  the  bodily  life  of  animals"  may- 
be taken  as  equivalent  to  substance  (which  I  doubt) 
we  are  faced  with  our  old  difficulty  which  was  that  of 
identifying  the  qualities  given  in  sensation  and  per- 
ception with  the  ultimate  elements  of  matter  and  their 
behaviour ;  for  we  can  hardly  imagine  anything  more 
totally  dissimilar.  It  is  not  as  if  we  knew  absolutely 
nothing  about  those  ultimate  elements;  science  has  at 
last  reduced  them  to  hypothetical  electrons,  to  atoms 
and  molecules  and  their  movements  and  vibrations. 
If  you  say  that  these  ultimate  elements  are  substance 
you  have  the  dissimilarity  on  your  hands;  if  you  say 
that  they  are  not  substance  but  the  appearances  of  a 
reality  still  more  ultimate,  you  have  a  set  of  appear- 
ances which  do  not  appear,  you  are  further  off  from 
substance  than  ever,  and  again  you  have  no  evidence 
to  show  for  your  alleged  identity  of  essence. 

Critical  realism,  then,  unites  two  assumptions : 

"first,  that  knowledge  is  transitive,  so  that  self-existing  things  may 
become  the  chosen  objects  of  a  mind  that  identifies  and  indicates 
them ;  second,  that  knowledge  is  relevant,  so  that  the  thing  indicated 
may  have  at  least  some  of  the  qualities  that  the  mind  attributes 
to  it."  ' 

Professor  Santayana  says  that  these  assumptions  are 
''instinctive  and  necessary  to  the  validity  of  know- 
ledge,"  whereas  the  truth  is  that  the  transitiveness,  the 
passage  from  the  external  self-existing  object  to  the 

^  Three  Proofs  of  Eealism,   (Essays  in  Critical  Bealism),  p.  167. 
'  The  same,  p.  168. 


126  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

mind  is  a  necessity  created  solely  by  the  realistic  as- 
sumption of  separation  and  externality;  and  the  rele- 
vance is,  again,  the  question  in  dispute.  On  this  the- 
ory— I  repeat — you  can  never  be  certain  that  your 
assumption  is  correct. 

If  on  the  other  hand  you  identify  substance  with  some 
underlying  mind  or  self,  and  appearances  with  the  con- 
tent of  its  consciousness,  parts  or  aspects  of  which 
content  are  transmitted  to  the  consciousness  of  finite 
selves,  you  have  all  the  transitiveness  your  instinct  can 
require  (if  it  did  require  it)  and  an  indisputable  rele- 
vance (I  will  admit  that  our  instinct  demands  rele- 
vance.) You  have,  in  fact,  a  direct  relevance  of  con- 
sciousness to  consciousness  without  the  interpolation 
of  any  images  or  essences,  which  only  serve  to  make 
this  complicated  affair  more  complicated  still. 

Professor  Santayana's  three  proofs  of  realism 
amount  to  this:  (1)  Man  as  a  biological  organism 
adapts  his  behaviour  to  the  assumption  that  objects 
are  outside  him,  that  is  to  say,  outside  his  organism. 
(2)  Even  the  idealist's  psychological  behaviour  im- 
plies the  independent  reality  of  time,  of  other  minds, 
and  of  his  own  transcendental  logic.  (3)  Knowledge 
involves  the  external  reality  of  logical  essences, 
changeless  amid  the  flux  of  existence.^ 

The  biological  proof  merely  proves  that  we  are  con- 
scious of  the  existence  of  objects  outside  our  bodies, 
a  fact  which  no  idealist  would  or  could  deny.  The 
psychological  proof  is  valid  only  as  against  solipsism ; 
the  logical  proof  only  as  against  sensational  idealism. 
For  the  idealist  would,  or  should,  admit  the  reality  of 
logical  essences,  not  external  to  all  consciousness  but 
constitutive  of  the  universe  within  it,  the  ''means,"  if 
critical  realism  likes  to  put  it  that  way,  by  which  the 

^  Three  Proofs  of  Realism  (Essays  in  Critical  Realism),  pp.  169-184. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         127 

mind  recognises  objects  already  perceived  in  what  I 
call  the  primary  block  of  consciousness. 

Professor  Sellars  in  '*  Knowledge  and  its  Cate- 
gories" enters  more  precisely  into  the  question  of 
separation  of  existence  and  identity  of  essence.  He  in- 
sists that 

"Mere  identification  does  not  meet  essential  difficulties.  It  must 
be  remembered  that,  in  the  act  of  knowledge,  the  idea  which  gives 
the  content  of  knowledge  (the  esse  intentionale  of  the  scholastics) 
is  other  than  the  object  of  knowledge."  * 

Yet  identity  there  is.  It  is  a  logical  identity  in  the 
sense  that  the  data  "possess  cognitive  value." 

Professor  Sellars,  like  Professor  Drake  and  Pro- 
fessor Pratt  is  keenly  alive  to  the  difficulty  of  estab- 
lishing the  relations  of  passage  fro^n  and  fitness  of 
knowledge  to  the  object.  It  is  not  done  in  the  moment 
of  perception. 

"Only  as  reflection  proceeds  is  the  givenness  of  content  dis- 
tinguished from  knowledge  and  regarded  as  the  instrument  of  know- 
ledge." ' 

We  might  even  say  that  this  happens  only  in  the 
reflections  of  critical  realists. 

"The  physical  realm  is  one  we  can  never  intuit  as  common  sense 
tends  to  suppose;  the  only  realm  we  can  intuit  is  the  realm  of 
data." ' 

Thus,  to  begin  with,  we  must  distinguish  between 
knowledge  and  intuition,  and,  further,  the  critical  real- 
ist holds 

"that  we  do  not  infer  a  realm  of  existents  co-real  with  ourselves 
but,  instead,  affirm  it  through  the  very  pressure  and  suggestion  of 
our  experience."  * 

And  so,  always  at  the  critical  moment  when  the 
critical  realist  is  asked  to  give  grounds  for  his  as- 

^  Knowledge  and  its  Categories  (Essays  in  Critical  Eealism),  p.  190. 

*  The  same,  pp.  193,  194. 
^  The  same,  p.  195. 

*  The  same. 


128  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iii 

sertion  that  his  ideas  and  reality  tally,  he  puts  you 
off  with  his  dogmatic  affirmation  that  it  is  so;  and 
this  after  having  coolly  told  you  that  the  "givenness 
of  content,"  as  not  knowledge  but  "an  instrument  of 
knowledge,"  is  reached  by  a  process  of  reflection ;  when 
the  idealist's  obvious  repartee  is  that  his  processes 
of  reflection  reveal  nothing  of  the  sort.  We  may  in- 
deed intuit  the  content  of  knowledge,  but  if  we  do  not 
intuit  the  physical  realm  along  with  it  neither  do  we 
intuit  their  logical  identity;  and  I  submit  that  a  bare 
"affirmation"  has  no  ground  of  justification  when  it 
rests  neither  on  intuition  nor  on  inference.  These 
delicate  distinctions  between  content  and  object,  be- 
tween identity  of  existence  and  identity  of  essence  are 
all  very  well,  but  how  on  earth  are  you  to  get  from  one 
to  the  other  if  you  may  neither  intuit  nor  infer? 

Professor  Sellars's  method  of  solving  this  problem 
is  to  add  yet  another  unproved  and  unprovable  affirma- 
tion to  the  rest:  the  affirmation  of  "thinghood."  You 
add  the  category  of  thinghood  and  your  perception 
is  complete.  On  page  a  hundred  and  ninety-seven 
he  admits  that 

"reflection  has  discovered  that  the  content  with  which  we  auto- 
matically clothe  these  acknowledged  realities  is  subjective." 

Professor  Drake  admits  it.  All  the  critical  realists 
admit  it.  None  of  them  suggest  that  the  discoveries 
of  reflection  are  invalid,  or  that  any  after  reflection 
impugns  the  subjectivity  of  this  automatic  clothing. 
Yet  on  the  very  next  page  Professor  Sellars  gravely 
states  that  "the  object  must  be  known  in  terms  of  the 
content  which  is  given  to  the  knowing  self." 

What  could  idealism  wish  for  more  ? 

Remember,  it  was  stated  on  page  one  hundred  and 
ninety-five  that  we  do  not  infer  a  realm  of  existents  co- 
real  with  ourselves,  we  affirm  it.  Apparently,  having 
affirmed  it,  we  go  on,  after  reflection,  to  infer  that  it 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         129 

must  be  known  in  terms  of  the  content.  But  the  whole 
process  of  inference  rests  on  the  original  baseless 
affirmation.  And  then,  again,  after  being  told  that  we 
do  not  intuit  the  ''physical  realm,"  the  realm  of  ob- 
jects, we  are  thrown  back  on  intuition.  Knowledge, 
Professor  Sellars  says, 

"is  just  the  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  object  which  is  made 
possible  by  contents  which  reflect  it  in  consciousness." 

And  he  repeats  his  statement  that  the  object  is  known 
in  terms  of  the  content  presented  to  the  knowing  self. 

A  while  back  we  had  the  content  ''clothing"  the  ob- 
ject "automatically,"  now  we  have  the  object  "reflect- 
ed" in  the  content.  I  do  not  want  to  descend  to  mere 
verbal  quibbling,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  we  have  here 
a  confusion  between  two  fundamentally  different  rela- 
tions, of  objects  reflecting  themselves  into  contents,  and 
contents  putting  their  own  clothes  on  objects,  of  objects 
taking  the  initiative  and  contents  taking  the  initiative, 
and  that  this  confusion  expresses  a  fundamental  ambig- 
uity in  the  relation,  which  critical  realism  has  not 
helped  to  make  clear.  And  we  may  ask  if  the  con- 
tent, after  all,  has  to  be  presented,  why  distinguish 
between  it  and  the  object?  What  presents  it?  Not 
the  object,  for  then  it  would  be  the  content  of  the  ob- 
ject and  not  a  mere  instrument  of  knowing. 
"The  content  has  cognitive  value," 

And  this  is  "a  way  of  saying"  that  it  is 

"relevant  to  the  object,  that  it  has  a  sort  of  revelatory  identity 
with  the  object,  that  it  contains  its  structure,  position,  and  changes."  * 

It  is  implied  that  there  are  characteristics  which  it 
does  not  contain  and  that  those  it  does  contain  are  not 
perfectly  identical;  it  has  only  "a  sort  of"  revelatory 
identity.  Critical  realism  is  very  careful  not  to  commit 
itself  too  deeply  on  this  question  of  identity,  anyhow 

^Knowledge  and  its  Categories  (Essays  in  Critical  Realism),  p.  200. 


130  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

we  are  evidently  back  again  in  the  old  dualism  between 

primary  and  secondary  qualities. 

"One  flower  is  white  and  small,  another  is  blue  and  large,  etc. 
These  differences  are  rightly  taken  by  all  to  point  to  difference9 
in  the   physical   object."^ 

But  when  we  ask  "what  is  the  exact  nature  of  this 
agreement"  we  are  referred  to  ''the  total  psychologi- 
cal situation. ' ' 

Now  the  total  psychological  situation  may  tell  us 
pretty  plainly  that  there  is  correspondence  of  a  sort, 
that  there  is  even  a  direct  connection  between  the  mov- 
ing molecules  of  the  causal  object  and  the  moving  mole- 
cules of  the  physical  organism,  but  it  does  not  and  can- 
not tell  us  of  any  sort  of  identity  or  even  of  similarity 
between  content  and  object.  Even  if  we  were  to  grant 
that  primary  and  secondary  qualities  are  not  in  the 
same  boat,  the  utmost  possible  agreement  would  be 
that  the  structure  and  position  of  objects  moving  or  at 
rest  may  be  supposed  really  to  occupy  the  same  geo- 
metrical points  of  space  that  they  appear  to  occupy  at 
a  given  time.  Only,  even  so,  the  image  (or  essence) 
theory  saddles  us  with  the  insuperable  difficulty  of  ob- 
jects there  in  space,  and  essences  (or  images)  here  in 
consciousness. 

And  on  page  two  hundred  and  six  we  are  told,  in 
italics,  that 

"the  critical  realist  holds  that  knowledge  is  a  function  of  the 
known  rather  than  a  peculiar,  real  relation  between  the  knower  and 
the  known." 

That  is  to  say,  the  peculiar  real  relation  between  ob- 
ject and  content  presupposes  no  sort  of  relation  be- 
tween either  and  the  knower.  And  yet  it  was  the 
knower  who  "clothed"  the  object  with  the  subjective 
qualities  of  the  content,  who  was  related  to  it  as  "the 
poet  to  his  work." 

^Knowledge  and  its  Categories  {Essays  in  Critical  Realism),  p.  202. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         131 

The  fact  is  the  critical  realist  is  sailing  very  peril- 
ously between  realism  and  idealism.  He  is  trying  to 
get  all  the  advantages  of  epistemology  without  its  dis- 
astrous effects  on  realism.  Critical  realism,  to  do  it 
justice,  is  only  too  keenly  aw^are  of  the  danger.  Thus 
Professor  Sellars,  faced  with  the  obvious  dissimilarity 
between  content  and  object,  says 

"But  we  who  have  given  up  the  sensible  physical  thing  realize 
that  the  belief  in  appearance  as  a  manifestation  like  the  physical 
thing  is  misleading."  ^ 

So  that,  after  all,  we  are  no  nearer  knowing  where 
we  are.  One  moment  we  are  told  that  the  essence  of 
content  and  object  is  identical,  that  the  subject  clothes 
the  object  with  the  qualities  of  the  data  and  that  in  see- 
ing by  means  of  our  apparatus  of  percepts  we  are  real- 
ly seeing  objects  (though  apparently  we  may  not  per- 
ceive them) ;  and  the  next  that  to  talk  of  mere  likeness 
between  object  and  appearance  is  misleading. 

And  again,  when  it  comes  to  asking  plumply  and 
plainly.  Are  the  data  mental  or  non-mental  ? 

"The  critical  realist  agrees  with  the  idealist  that  the  content  is 
mental,  but  strikes  his  counter-blow  by  asserting  that  knowledge  is  a 
claim  to  know  an  object  in  terms  of  this  content.  The  object  is 
known  but  not  intuited ;  the  content  is  intuited  but  not  known."  * 

I  confess  I  cannot  see  how  the  idealist  is  hit  by  this 
blow,  seeing  that  it  is  precisely  what  he  asserts  himself. 

As  far  as  memory  is  concerned,  while  the  critical 
realist  would,  I  think,  agree  with  the  idealist  criticism 
of  the  new-realist  theory,  he  is  in  a  curious  position. 
He  contends  that  *'the  object  of  memory  no  longer  ex- 
ists but  that  the  claim  and  content  are  elements  of  the 
present  act."  ^ 

So  that  he  is  left  with  a  content  without  an  object. 

^Knowledge  and  its  Categories  (Essays  in  Critical  Eealism),  p.  210. 
='The  same,  p.  212. 
'The  same,  p.  216. 


132  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

When  it  comes  to  The  Nature  of  the  Datum,  Profes- 
sor Strong  is  up  to  his  neck  in  the  familiar  incompati- 
bilities. Almost  passionately  he  reiterates  that  the 
datum  is  not  the  physical  thing.  Therefore  the  physi- 
cal thing 

"can  only  be  either  an  intellectual  construction  made  on  the  basis 
of  data  or  a  real  existence  brought  before  us  by  data."  * 

He  objects  to  the  word  datum,  used  so  freely  by  the 
other  critical  realists,  because  "it  suggests  that  the 
givenness  is  given  along  with  the  thing,"  in  other 
words,  that  we  intuit  givenness,  which  involves  a  rela- 
tion to  the  self.  He  wants  his  datum  clean,  cut  clear 
from  all  the  fringes  of  the  self,  therefore  he  prefers 
the  word  essence  alone.  There  is  a  purity  about  es- 
sence, it  carries  no  psychological  implications.  In  fact 
the  persistence  with  which  Professor  Strong  clears 
away  the  psychological  fringes  seems  strangely  at 
variance  with  the  conception  of  the  content  as  "men- 
tal," and  of  the  mind  as  clothing  the  object  with  its 
qualities.  To  Professor  Strong,  in  the  case  of  a  physi- 
cal object,  say,  a  face,  the  content  is  physical  in  essence 
but  not  in  existence.^  Pain  and  a  fit  of  temper  are  not, 
for  example,  on  the  same  footing  as  a  face.  They  are 
frankly  psychological.  But  the  content,  face,  is  nei- 
ther psychological  nor  physical  (except  in  essence)  but 
logical.^ 

By  this  time  it  is  clear  that  this  subtle  distinction 
would  fairly  rule  the  subject  out,  if  critical  realism 
could  make  up  its  mind  to  this  drastic  action.  At  first 
sight  it  isn't  easy  to  see  how  it  can  deny  that  the  con- 
tent is  psychological  and  yet  assert  that  it  is  mental, 
nor  how,  if  the  content  is  mental  in  existence,  it  can 

^  On   the   Nature   of   the   Datum    (Essays   in    Critical   Bealism),   pp. 

227,  228. 

'  The  same,  pp.  228,  229. 

228,  229. 

'  The  same. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         133 

prove  that  the  object  is  physical  in  existence,  nor  yet 
how,  still  distinguishing  between  essence  and  existence, 
it  can  prove  that  the  content  is  physical  in  essence, 
since  the  real  nature  of  the  physical  object  is  unknown. 
Critical  realism  draws  a  distinction  between  what  is 
subjective  in  the  psychological  sense  and  what  is  sub- 
jective in  the  logical  sense.  In  this  latter  sense,  then, 
the  content  is  downright  subjective. 

"We  may  appreciate  the  dangers  which  have  driven 
critical  realism  to  its  conclusions,  but  our  appreciation 
cannot  blind  us  to  the  difficulties  they  give  rise  to. 

I  do  not  say  that  the  logical  essence  of  a  blue  jug  or 
of  a  smell  of  fried  potatoes  is  a  more  staggering  con- 
ception in  itself  than  the  logical  essence  of  deity ;  and 
I  am  not  denying  the  reality  of  logical  essences  in  their 
proper  place,  but  I  do  not  think  that  their  proper  place 
is  where  the  jug  and  the  smell  are,  in  the  world  of 
space  and  time.  On  any  theory  of  knowledge  or  of 
reality  I  do  not  think  that  logical  essences  belong  in 
any  sense  to  space  and  time.  I  gather  that  critical 
realists  do  not  either,  and  I  also  gather  that  Profes- 
sor Strong  does  not  regard  a  pain  or  a  fit  of  temper  as 
a  logical  essence,  and  while  I  can  perfectly  well  see 
that  a  pain  or  a  fit  of  temper  may  have  a  logical  essence 
out  of  space  and  out  of  time  by  virtue  of  which  they 
figure  in  logical  propositions,  I  cannot  see  that  a  blue 
jug  or  a  smell  of  fried  potatoes  can  he  a  logical  es- 
sence, seeing  that  they  are  in  space  and  time. 

Professor  Strong  gets  over  this  difficulty  by  denying 
that  sense-data  are  in  space  and  time,  and  affirming 
that  only  the  physical  things  which  the  sense-data 
bring  before  us  are  in  space  and  time ;  and  I  want  to 
know  how  he  knows  this  about  physical  things  since 
his  only  guarantee  is  the  evidence  of  data  not  in  space 
and  time  f    I  do  not  think  you  could  well  have  any  two 


134  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  in 

classes  of  entities  more  hopelessly  divided  in  exist- 
ence and  in  essence,  more  hopelessly  uncorresponding 
and  unrepresentative  of  each  other  than  entities  in 
space  and  time  and  entities  timeless  and  spaceless. 
His  denial  is  also  in  plain  contradiction  with  the  evi- 
dence of  our  percepts,  which  (whatever  they  may  not 
do)  do  at  least  present  themselves  as  in  space  and  do 
most  certainly  occur  in  time.  Sense-data  may  be  in 
flagrant  contradiction  with  each  other,  they  may  not 
agree  with  any  concept  of  physical  nature  which  sci- 
ence gives  us,  they  may  for  all  we  know  be  sheer  hallu- 
cinations, yet  they  do  indubitably  appear  as  visibly  or 
tactually  extended,  or  audibly  located  in  space,  and  as 
spatially  related  to  each  other,  and  the  dates  of  their 
appearing  and  the  order  of  their  appearing  are  indu- 
bitably in  time,  and  they  are  temporally  related  to  each 
other.  And  if  they  were  not  they  would  be  pretty  poor 
data  for  realism's  affirmation  of  external  reality. 
Even  a  pain  may  be  '^ located,"  and  a  fit  of  temper  oc- 
curs in  time  in  a  definite  relation  to  other  events.  I 
simply  do  not  know  what  Professor  Strong  means  by 
his  assertion  that  visual  data  have  no  spatial  relations 
to  each  other.    Here  it  is  in  full: 

"the  visual  data  as  such  are  neither  here  nor  there.  They  have 
no  spatial  relations  to  other  possible  visual  data,  but  only  spatial  re- 
lations among  their  own  parts — none,  in  short,  that  are  not  at  this 
moment  given."  ^ 

If  he  means  that  they  are  not  perceived  as  visibly 
related  in  space  to  other  data  not  perceived  at  the 
moment  when  they  are  given,  this  is  not  saying  that 
they  are  not  so  related  to  other  visual  data  which  are 
perceived  at  the  same  time.  My  bookcase  is  to  the 
right  of  the  fireplace  and  to  the  left  of  the  door.  All 
the  visual  content,  of  various  data,  which  I  have  before 
me  at  this  moment  appears  to  me  as  spatially  and  tem- 

*  The  Nature  of  the  Datum  (Essays  in  Critical  Bealism),  p.  232. 


m  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         135 

porally  related.  Professor  Strong  says  that  these 
data  are  not  so  related  among  themselves  as  wholes, 
but  only  their  parts,  and  I  ask  him  Why  not  the  wholes, 
where  separate  wholes  can  be  discerned  in  one  block 
of  consciousness?  And  I  cannot  see  how  he  can  deny 
to  the  whole  what  he  grants  to  the  parts,  how  a  whole 
whose  parts  are  temporally  and  spatially  related  can 
avoid  being  itself  spatially  and  temporally  related. 
By  far  the  safer  line  for  him  to  take  would  be  that 
logical  essences  have  no  parts. 

He  also  denies  that  they  are  existences.  This  fol- 
lows from  denying  that  they  are  related  in  space  and 
time;  and  the  idealist  can  have  no  possible  objection; 
in  fact,  by  taking  this  particular  line  critical  realism 
is  playing  very  obligingly  into  his  hands. 

In  order  that  we  may  the  better  realise  that  a  datum 
is  not  an  existence — and  remember,  the  idealist  is  not 
quarrelling  with  him  on  this  score — Professor  Strong 
insists  on  the  distinction  between  the  datum  and  **the 
psychic  state  which  is  its  vehicle."  By  the  psychic 
state  he  means,  not  the  mere  psychic  fact  that  we  are 
sensing,  but  the  sense-element,  the  sensation  which  we 
should  have  supposed  to  be  an  element  of  the  sense- 
datum,  but  which  now  appears  as  a  tertium  quid  which 
is  *'in  time  and  perhaps  space  when  the  data  aren't." 
But  as  he  identifies  it  with  the  psychic  state  it  is  hard 
to  see  how,  on  his  theory,  it  can  be  spatial.  In  fact 
this  appearance  of  the  sense  element  as  a  separate 
psychic  entity  from  the  sense-datum,  though  it  clears 
the  character  of  the  logical  essences,  does  not  serve  to 
clarify  their  relations.  He  argues  in  effect,  that  the 
psychic  state  "which  we  have  always  with  us  whether 
we  merely  feel  or  whether  we  perceive  "  is  an  existent 
in  its  own  way,  but  affords  no  grounds  for  our  assum- 
ing the  existence  of  the  essence ;  otherwise 


136  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

"we  should  have  three  existences  concerned  in  sense-perception — 
the  physical  thing,  the  state  of  our  sensibility  and  the  essence" — 

This,  again,  to  avoid  multiplication  and  incompati- 
bility of  existents. 

The  example  he  gives  as  showing  "most  clearly  the 
difference  between  the  perceptual  essence  and  the  sen- 
sation" 

"is  that  of  the  after-image  of  the  sun  projected  successively  on 
the  thumb-nail,  on  the  wall  of  the  room  and  on  a  mountain  side."  * 

Because  he  finds  that  the  after-image  itself  "retains 
the  same  sensible  size,"  he  argues  that  the  variation 
in  the  size  of  the  objects 

"must  he  something  which  the  after-image  has  as  a  symbol  but 
not  as  a  sensible  fact."  * 

1  am  afraid  I  cannot  see  the  necessity.  In  the  first 
place  I  think  it  may  fairly  be  objected  that  the  after- 
image "has "n't  these  sizes,  either  as  symbols  or  as 
facts,  at  all,  any  more  than  it  "has"  the  projections 
on  the  thumb-nail,  the  wall  and  the  mountain  side.  The 
sizes  belong  clearly  to  the  projections,  and  not  to  the 
after-image ;  they  and  it  are  on  precisely  the  same  foot- 
ing, and  they  are  in  no  more  peculiar  case  than  the  re- 
flection of  the  sun  itself  on  any  distorting,  or  diminish- 
ing medium.  We  have  here  in  fact  some  rather  special 
instances  of  the  relativity  of  size,  three  sense-data  in 
three  different  contexts.  (Clearly  Professor  Strong 
regards  the  projections  as  data,  since  he  refers  to  their 
"meaning");  and  so  far  from  the  facts  being  "diffi- 
cult to  construe  on  an  idealistic  hypothesis"  I  should 
say  they  were  absolutely  damning  to  Professor 
Strong's  theory  that  sense-data  are  not  related  in  space 
and  time.  If  ever  there  was  a  glaring  instance  of 
spatial  and  temporal  relations  it  is  the  relations  of 

*  The  Nature  of  the  Datum,  (Essays  in  Critical  Realism),  pp.  234-235. 
'  The  same. 


Ill  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         137 

that  after-image  and  its  projections.  New  realism, 
taking  them  all  to  be  realities  in  real  time  and  real 
space,  is  in  a  still  more  awkward  predicament,  but  this 
does  not  make  the  position  a  bed  of  roses  for  its  critics. 
I  do  not  think  the  objections  to  his  examples,  which 
Professor  Strong  brings  forward  in  order  to  refute 
them,  are  very  serious  objections,  but  I  do  think  his 
examples  are  very  serious  objections  to  his  theory. 

It  must  be  admitted  at  once  that  the  arguments 
against  critical  realism's  view  of  perception  do  not  ap- 
ply with  equal  force  to  its  theory  of  memory.  To  be- 
gin with,  space  and  time  are  not  implicated  in  the  same 
way.  We  are  dealing  with  ' '  images ' '  which  the  theory 
rightly  or  wrongly  assumes  to  be  spaceless  and  time- 
less. This  assumption  is  clean  contrary  to  that  of  Pro- 
fessor Laird  and  the  new  realists  who  regard  a  memory 
as  tantamount  to  a  perception  with  its  date  in  the  past. 
The  memory  of  the  critical  realists  is  the  old  memory- 
image  of  tradition  reinstated,  with  a  complication  ow- 
ing to  the  assumption  that  it  is  the  image  of  an  image, 
the  idea  of  an  idea. 

Professor  Strong  considers  that  the  "idea"  which 
we  have  before  our  minds  when  we  remember  is 

"distinct  from  the  mental  image,  visual,  auditory  or  other,  by 
means  of  which  we  conceive  it;  that  this  mental  image  alone  is  a 
present  fact,  an  existence,  and  that  the  idea  is  the  mere  character 
which  we  conceive  the  past  fact  to  have,  without  its  existence — in 
short,   an   essence."  * 

The  idealist  has  nothing  to  say  against  this  except 
that  his  own  alternative  theory  is  not  lumbered  up  with 
the  old  machinery  of  duplicate  images.  He  can  take 
the  new  realist's  view  that  in  memory  we  indeed  per- 
ceive the  past  thing  itself  in  present  time.  The  ideal- 
ist can  do  this  without  telescoping  the  various  ''real" 
times  and  "real"  spaces  together  in  an  impossible 

^  The  Nature  of  the  Datum  (Essays  in  Critical  Bealism),  p.  238. 


138  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  m 

spatio-temporal  perspective,  because  he  assumes  that 
his  consciousness  carries  past,  present  and  to  some 
extent  future  times  and  spaces  with  it.  Consciousness 
is  itself  existent  in  the  form  of  space  and  time. 

It  is  precisely  in  its  treatment  of  space  and  time 
that  critical  realism  is  most  unsatisfactory;  while,  in 
its  view  of  primary  and  secondary  qualities  it  is  drag- 
ging philosophy  back  to  where  Locke  left  it,  and  play- 
ing, as  Locke  played,  into  the  hands  of  the  idealism 
that  must  come  after.  It  should  be  given  full  credit 
for  its  dexterity  and  skill  in  dodging  the  traditional 
incompatibilities,  though,  as  we  have  seen,  its  sub- 
tlety lands  it  in  troubles  of  its  own. 

Its  assumptions,  in  short,  are  reducible  to  this  ab- 
surdity :  We  know  the  reality  we  can't  know  hy  means 
of  knowledge  that  we  haven't  got. 

NOTE: — I  am  not  sure  that  I  understand  Professor  Whitehead's 
"Method  of  Extensive  Abstraction."  I  see,  of  course,  how  the  system 
of  enclosing  squares  generates  the  point-instant  by  converging  to- 
wards an  ideal  limit,  but  not  how  it  generates  the  series  of  point-instants. 
You  start  with  a  duration  and  end  with  point-instants.  To  obtain  the 
next  point-instant  you  must,  I  imagine,  slice  through  the  next  event 
and  develop  another  system  of  Chinese  boxes,  whose  squares  will  over- 
lap those  of  the  system  you  started  with.  But  durations  are  made  up 
of  point-instants ;  therefore  each  * '  box ' '  will  cover  an  infinitely  greater 
number  of  point-instants  than  it  converges  to. 


IV 

THE  ANTINOMIES  OF  SPACE  AND  TIME 


In  the  theory  we  have  just  considered  the  antinomies 
of  Space  and  Time  are  supposed  to  be  ruled  out  and  ^e^^ 
continuity  secured  intact  by  a  four-dimensional  sys-  mies 
tern  of  space-times  or  events.  These,  as  we  have  seen, 
are  symbolized  as  packed  one  inside  each  other,  square 
within  square,  diminishing,  converging  to  the  point, 
or  instant,  an  ideal  minimum  or  limit  which  is  never 
reached,  and  can  never  be  common  to  all  the  including 
durations.  That  is  to  say,  it  will  always  fall  outside 
the  ultimate  square.  Its  perpetual  extension  beyond 
the  enclosing  square  of  any  one  duration  gives  rise  to 
the  infinite  linear  series  of  instants.  Thus  serial  time 
is  an  abstraction  from  the  system  of  enclosures. 

This  linear  series  with  its  point-instant  correspond- 
ence has  been  held  responsible  for  the  antinomies.  It 
is  supposed  that  within  each  case,  the  spatial  and  the 
temporal  respectively,  the  vicious  contradiction  of  dis- 
creteness in  continuity  is  due  to  time's  character  of 
successiveness  imported  into  space,  and  the  passage 
from  next  point  to  next  point.  The  antinomies  of  Zeno 
—Achilles  and  the  Tortoise ;  the  Arrow ;  and  the  three 
Processions— are  based  on  this  nextness.  Achilles  can- 
not overtake  the  tortoise  because,  going  from  next 
point-instant  to  next,  he  cannot  possibly  cover  more 
than  one  point  at  one  instant,  and  the  tortoise  cannot 
very  well  do  less.  The  arrow  cannot  fly,  because  going 
from  next  point-instant  to  next,  it  is  stationary  at  each 

139 


140  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

point  at  each  instant.  The  processions  involve  a  fright- 
ful time  dilemma.  Two  of  them  are  moving  towards 
each  other  past  a  third  procession  which  is  standing 
still.  They  can  only  go  from  next  point-instant  to 
next.  There  will  be  a  moment  when  all  three  will  be 
lined  up  evenly  with  each  other;  but  in  approaching 
this  position  half  of  each  moving  procession  will  be 
lined  up  with  half  the  standing  procession  in  the  half 
time  of  the  total  movement.  Yet  in  getting  there  each 
member  of  the  two  moving  processions  will  have  moved 
forward  one  point-instant,  thus  covering  successively 
each  point-instant  of  the  whole  time,  so  that  the  half 
time  will  be  equal  to  the  whole.  There  will  be  more 
time  left  over  than  can  be  accounted  for  by  the  posi- 
tions in  space.  On  the  other  hand,  let  the  moving  pro- 
cessions be  in  line  with  the  standing  procession  at  the 
start  and  let  them  depart  in  opposite  directions.  At 
the  first  instant  the  first  and  last  members  of  the  mov- 
ing processions  will  be  in  line  with  each  other.  At  the 
second  instant  they  will  be  in  line  with  the  third  mem- 
ber, or  next  point  but  one,  of  the  original  order.  They 
will  each  have  had  to  pass  the  intermediate  member  or 
point;  but  there  will  be  no  intermediate  instant  in 
which  they  can  have  done  this.  There  is  not  enough 
time  to  go  round. 

The  antinomies  of  Kant  turn  on  the  discreteness  in 
continuity,  the  divisibility  and  indivisibility  of  space, 
time  and  matter,  and  on  their  finiteness  and  infinity. 
Thus: 

The  world  has  a  beginning  in  time  and  limits  in 
space,  because,  if  it  hadn  't,  an  eternity  of  moments  and 
an  infinite  series  of  events  must  have  elapsed  up  to 
any  given  moment  or  event ;  the  beginning  of  the  world 
would  be  such  a  moment  or  event,  but  on  the  theory  of 
an  infinite  series  it  could  never  happen,  since  such  a 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         141 

series  is  never  closed.  The  same  thing  will  hold  good 
of  the  infinite  synthesis  of  points  in  space.  Therefore 
the  world  must  have  a  beginning  in  time  or  space. 

But  the  world  cannot  have  a  beginning  in  time  and 
space,  because  if  it  had,  it  would  be  preceded  by  an 
empty  time  and  an  empty  space,  and  in  empty  time  it  is 
not  possible  for  anything  to  happen,  since  no  part  of 
such  time  would  have  any  determining  quality  of  ex- 
istence. And  the  world  consists  of  objects  standing  in 
spatial  relations  to  each  other,  but  in  such  a  space  it 
would  have  no  correlate  and  thus  it  could  not  be.  There- 
fore the  world  has  no  beginning  in  space  and  time. 

Again,  every  concrete  substance  consists  of  simple 
parts,  because,  if  it  didn't,  supposing  you  could  think 
away  the  synthesis,  nothing  at  all  would  be  left;  and 
supposing  you  can't  think  away  the  synthesis,  you  can't 
think  away  the  parts  which  are  put  together.  There- 
fore every  concrete  substance  consists  of  simple,  in- 
divisible parts. 

But  no  concrete  substance  can  consist  of  simple  in- 
divisible parts,  because,  if  it  did,  it  must  consist  of  as 
many  parts  as  there  are  parts  of  space,  and  space 
doesn't  consist  of  simple  parts  but  of  spaces.  That  is 
to  say,  if  space  is  infinitely  divisible,  matter  is.  There- 
fore no  substance  can  consist  of  simple,  indivisible 
parts. 

The  absolute  necessity  is  laid  on  us,  therefore,  of 
qualifying  space,  time,  and  matter  by  contradictory 
characteristics  in  one  and  the  same  relation  and  at 
one  and  the  same  moment.  It  is  not  open  to  us  to  say 
that  space,  time  and  matter  are  finite,  divisible  and  dis- 
crete at  one  moment  and  in  one  relation,  and  infinite, 
indivisible  and  continuous  at  another  moment  or  in  an- 
other relation;  for  the  character  of  space  and  time  is 
that  all  spaces  are  alike  at  all  times  and  all  times  alike 


142  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

in  all  spaces ;  ^  all  parts  of  space  being  spaces  and  all 
parts  of  time  being  times,  and  the  relation  in  question 
is  the  relation  of  those  parts  and  their  wholes.  There- 
fore these  contradictions  are  inherent  in  the  very  con- 
cept of  space,  time  and  matter. 

it 

Now  Hegel,  like  Professor  Whitehead  and  Professor 
Some  Alexander,  contended  that  the  antinomies  arise  from 
^^uSSis^^^  deplorable  habit  of  abstracting  space  and  time 
from  their  context  in  the  cosmic  process ;  only,  unlike 
Professor  Alexander  and  Professor  Whitehead,  he 
conceived  the  cosmic  process  as  the  movement  of 
thought  in  the  Triple  Dialectic.  Thus  discreteness  and 
continuity  are  taken  up  in  the  higher  concept  of  Quan- 
tity. But  as  discreteness  breaks  out  again  violently  in 
the  Quantum,  the  antinomy  can  hardly  be  said  to  be 
disposed  of.  All  that  the  Hegelian  dialectic  does  is  to 
bring  its  warring  elements  a  stage  nearer  to  the  ulti- 
mate, all-reconciling  peace  of  consciousness. 

And  this  is  a  bit  too  late  for  physics  and  for  mathe- 
matics which  have  to  deal  with  space  and  time  and  mat- 
ter now.  It  is  too  late  for  realism.  To  realism  the 
antinomies  are  peculiarly  disastrous.  If  motion  is  to 
be  real  in  a  real  space  and  real  time,  it  must  not  at  any 
stage  involve  self-contradiction.  Therefore  modern 
realists  fly  to  the  solution  said  to  be  provided  by  the 
Cantor-Dedekind  definition  of  the  compact  series. 
Nextness,  it  is  supposed,  is  the  sole  ground  of  the  con- 
tradiction; do  away  with  nextness,  define  continuity 
in  terms  which  exclude  nextness,  and  the  antinomies 
are  solved.  The  Cantor-Dedekind  definition  of  the 
compact  series  does  away,  it  is  said,  with  nextness. 

*  This  would  not  be  so  according  to  the  Principle  of  Belativity.  But 
that  principle  does  not  touch  the  antinomies  of  continuity.  So  far  from 
solving  any  of  them,  it  introduces  further  complications  of  its  own. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         143 

Between  any  two  points,  or  instants,  there  is  an  in- 
finity of  points  or  instoAits. 

And  I  gather  that  Profesor  Whitehead's  series  of 
event-particles  is  similarly  compact — compacter,  since 
he  stratifies  them  in  four  dimensions. 

The  struggles  of  various  philosophers  to  get  rid  of 
the  antinomies  are  both  amusing  and  instructive.  It 
can  only  be  done  by  denying  flatly  the  serial  character 
of  time,  or  by  distinguishing  between  real  time  which 
is  qualitative  and  continuous,  and  unreal  time  which  is 
quantitative  and  discrete,  in  which  past,  present  and 
future  are  measured  off  by  the  falling  of  the  sand  in 
the  hour-glass,  by  the  movement  of  the  shadow  on  the 
dial,  of  the  hands  on  the  face  of  the  clock.  This  is  M. 
Bergson's  way.  Meanwhile  serial  time,  past,  present 
and  future,  he  calls  spurious  time,  a  bastard  time  which 
is  really  spatial.  Real  time,  immeasurable  time,  is 
duree  and  it  is  purely  qualitative  and  non-successive. 
When  we  come  to  Professor  Alexander's  Space-Time 
we  shall  see  that  it  is  precisely  the  time  which  is  spa- 
tial which  is  real,  and  that  pure,  non-spatial  time  is  an 
abstraction  and  a  contradiction ;  time  and  space  taken 
apart  being  discrete,  and  taken  together  continuous. 
But  he  agrees  with  Professor  Bergson  in  regarding 
time  as  stuffing  for  the  interstices  of  space,  and  in  de- 
nouncing serial  time. 

Altogether  serial  time  has  a  bad  time  of  it  among 
vitalists,  pragmatists  and  realists.  Professor  Mon- 
tague, one  of  the  least  dogmatic  of  new-realists,  will 
have  none  of  it.  Professor  Boodin,  a  pragmatist  on  a 
cosmic  scale  transcending  mere  human  behaviour,  will 
have  none  of  it. 

Here  is  Professor  Montague. 

He  rejects  utterly  all  solutions  of  the  antinomies  but 
two:  the  ''relational"  theory  and  the  ''punctiform" 
theory,  and  in  these  he  finds  serious  defects.     Those 


144  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

who  swear  by  the  relational  theory  deny  that  time  and 
space  can  be  thus  divided  into  instants  with  no  dura- 
tion and  points  with  no  extension.  They  say  that  these 
are  intellectual  abstractions  with  no  real  existence,  and 
therefore  no  grip  on  real  objects  given  with  their  mo- 
tions in  perception.  Space  and  time  are  relations  be- 
tween events.  So  far  Professor  Montague  is  at  one 
with  the  upholders  of  the  event  theory,  but  he  objects 
to  their  depreciatory  view  of  points  and  instants  as 
unreal. 

What  he  calls  the  punctiform  theory  is  that  theory 
of  the  compact  series  which  we  have  been  considering, 
as  developed  by  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell.  According  to 
Professor  Montague's  view  of  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell's 
view 

"The  arrow  never  does  move  from  one  position  to  the  next.  It  is  at 
one  position  at  one  instant  and  it  is  at  the  'next'  position  at  the 
'next'  instant  and  that  is  all  there  is  to  its  motion."  ^ 

(I  think  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  would  say  it  never  is 
at  any  ''next"  position  at  any  ''next"  instant,  be- 
cause in  a  compact  series  there  is  no  "nextness,"  but 
that  it  flies  along  the  stretch  of  the  infinite  number  of 
points  in  an  infinite  number  of  instants). 

Professor  Montague  does  not  deny  the  reality  of 
the  points  and  instants  nor  their  serial  character,  but 
he  demands,  rightly,  I  think,  "a  thread  to  hold  them 
together."  And  he  has  hit  upon  the  brilliant  idea  of 
a  composite  theory,  the  "Double-Aspect"  theory, 
which  shall  combine  the  merits  of  the  relational  and 
punctiform  views  without  their  defects.  And  he  de- 
velops his  theory  with  brilliance.  We  must  have  the 
points ;  but  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  have 
the  relations  too. 

*  Professor  W.  P.  Montague,  The  Antinomy  and  Its  Implications  for 
Logical  Theory,  {Studies  in  the  History  of  Ideas).  Columbia  University 
PresB,  1918. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         145 

"A  spatial  line  truly  contains  an  actual  infinity  of  points,  but 
by  themselves  those  points  could  never  compose  the  line  ...  all 
points  in  the  series,  if  they  are  to  constitute  a  line,  must  stand  to 
each  other  in  the  relation  of  'besideness'  or  'to-the-right-and-left-of. 
.  .  .  Without  the  points  the  line  could  not  exist;  without  the  rela- 
tions between  the  points  they  could  never  constitute  a  line."  * 

And  the  same  holds  good  of  time. 

"Just  as  the  points  of  space  must  be  related  by  being  beside 
one  another,  so  the  instants  of  time  must  be  before  and  after  one 
another.  Relations  of  succession  are  as  truly  elements  as  the 
instants  themselves."  ^ 

We  have,  then,  the  relation  of  besideness  for  space 
and  of  succession  for  time,  and  their  correlation  for 
motion. 

"A  moving  body,  besides  involving  a  series  of  point-instant  cor- 
relations, involves  equally  a  series  of  beside-suceession  correla- 
tions. The  first  correlations  exhibit  motion  as  a  series  of  occupancies 
of  points  through  a  continuum  of  instants.  The  second  correlation 
exhibits  motion,  as  a  series,  not  of  occupancies  but  of  slips  (or 
from-to  relations  of  transition)  which  together  constitude  an  unin- 
ten-upted  and  unitary  slide."  * 

The  occupancy  answers  to  our  conception  of  space- 
time,  and  the  slide  to  what  is  given  in  perception ;  and 
we  are  supposed  to  have  thus  made  the  best  of  both 
worlds. 

But  have  we?  If  we  are  to  give  to  Caesar  the  things 
that  are  Caesar's,  the  ''occupancy"  to  conceptual 
space-time,  and  the  ''slide"  to  the  space  of  perception, 
we  are  no  better  off  than  we  were  before  when  we  still 
knew  that  bodies  in  actual  experience  do  apparently 
move  in  "an  uninterrupted  and  unitary  slide,"  and 
are  not  perceived  as  occupying  successive  points.  To 
satisfy  the  requirements  of  the  double  aspect  theory  we 
ought  also  to  be  able  to  say  both  that  bodies  are  per- 
ceived as  occupying  in  succession  the  points  of  the  line 
they  move  along  and  are  conceived  as  moving  from 

^The  Antinomy,  p.  245. 
^The  same,  p.  246. 
^  The  same. 


146  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

point  to  point  at  instant  to  instant  in  a  slide.  So  long 
as  points  and  instants  remain  discrete — and  Professor 
Montague  sees  very  clearly  that  the  compact  series 
does  not  do  away  with  their  discreteness — you  cannot 
get  a  continuum  out  of  the  relation  of  besideness  and 
the  relation  of  succession,  or  the  relations  of  besideness 
and  succession  taken  together.  In  either  case  the  rela- 
tion is  only  another  expression  of  the  discreteness. 

This  is  shown  very  glaringly  in  the  case  of  time,  and 
in  Professor  Montague's  answer  to  the  question: 

"  'If  a  body  at  each  instant  of  the  time  of  its  motion  is  in  one 
and  only  one  position  in  space,  when  can  it  move  from  one  position 
to  another?' 

"  'The  body  can  move  from  one  position  to  another  when  one 
instant  succeeds  to  another^."  ' 

Observe  that  it  is  the  relation  of  succession  which  is 
supposed  to  have  done  the  trick.  To  the  obvious  ob- 
jection, that  *'when"  is  itself  an  affair  of  instants, 
Professor  Montague  replies  that 

"the  time  when  one  instant  succeeds  to  another  is  a  perfectly 
real  time,  though  it  is  not  itself  any  instant,  just  as  the  'space  where' 
one  point  is  beside  another  is  a  perfectly  real  space,  though  it  is 
not  itself  any  point."  * 

It  seems  to  me  that  there  are  two  bad  fallacies  here. 
You  cannot  draw  a  distinction  between  the  time  when 
a  thing  succeeds  and  a  time  with  instants.  If  it  is  a 
''perfectly  real  time"  it  will  have  instants,  and  if  a 
perfectly  real  space  points,  and  the  antinomy  will  have 
broken  out  again.  And  how  can  an  object  move  in  the 
relation  of  besideness,  or  the  relation  of  succession? 
I  doubt  if  even  "common  sense"  would  be  absurd 
enough  to  maintain  that  "time  is  made  up  both  of  in- 
stants that  succeed  each  other  and  of  the  succeeding  of 
those  instants ' ' ;  for  time  is  not  the  succeeding,  though 

*  The  Antinomy,  p,  247. 

*  The  same. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         147 

the  succeeding  is  in  time.  You  cannot  treat  the  rela- 
tions of  space  and  time  as  if  they  were  times  and 
spaces.  Professor  Montague  says  himself  that  they 
are  not. 

"No  more  is  a  relation  between  two  brothers  itself  a  brother. 
Not  even  an  infinitesimally  small  brother."  * 

And  he  does  not  strengthen  his  case  when  he  adds 
that  it  is  ''as  real  a  constituent  of  brotherhood  as  are 
the  brothers  related : ' '  for,  in  the  first  place,  the  rela- 
tion is  not  a  constituent  of  brotherhood ;  it  is  brother- 
hood, just  as  succession  and  besideness  are  simply  suc- 
cession and  besideness ;  and,  in  the  second  place,  it  is 
not  the  reality  of  succession  that  is  in  dispute  but  the 
reality  of  motion  through  purely  serial  or  successive 
time.  A  body  moves,  if  it  moves  at  all,  in  space  and 
time  and  not  in  the  relations  of  besideness  and  succes- 
sion. Moreover  a  body  in  the  relation  of  besideness  is 
a  stationary  body. 

Professor  Boodin's  philosophy  is  based  on  a  kind  of 
inspired  physics  in  which  energies  and  ''energy  pat- 
terns" are  the  ultimate  realities.  There  are  hierar- 
chies among  these  entities  such  that  the  universe  may 
be  conceived  as  a  stratified  system  of  energies  working 
on  higher  and  higher  levels.  The  lower  strata  are  not 
so  strictly  closed  but  that,  when  on  any  level  the  spe- 
cial energy  of  that  level  has  done  its  work,  new  energy 
streams  down  into  it  from  the  next  higher  level.  On 
this  theory  the  process  of  evolution  is  not  a  simple 
unfolding  from  within  outward,  but  a  combined  move- 
ment of  impulse  downward  and  inward  and  of  expan- 
sion upward  and  outward.  The  flooding  in  of  higher 
energy  on  to  lower  levels  checks  the  tendency  to  degra- 
dation of  energy  on  each,  and  gives  the  cosmos  that 
series  of  forward  and  upward  shoves  which  keeps  it 
going.    Thus  life  enters  the  inorganic  world  and  con- 

'  The  Antinomy,  p.  247. 


148  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  rr 

sciousness  the  world  of  life  just  in  time  to  save  them, 
respectively,  from  the  degradation  and  ultimate  dis- 
appearance of  their  forms.^ 

In  so  far  as  Professor  Boodin's  pragmatism  is  on 
the  grand  cosmic  scale  it  is  fairly  safe  from  the  re- 
proach of  parochialism.  But  the  high  purpose  and 
wide  sweep,  the  brilliance  and  fascination  of  his  per- 
formance must  not  be  allowed  to  blind  us  to  the  inher- 
ent inadequacy  of  pragmatism  as  a  solution  of  ulti- 
mate problems,  nor  yet  to  certain  defects  in  his  special 
theory  of  Time.  And  it  is  his  theory  of  Time  that 
more  immediately  concerns  us  here. 

That  theory  is  so  curious  and  in  many  respects  so 
original  that  it  should  not  be  overlooked  in  any  survey 
of  the  philosophy  of  Space  and  Time.^ 

First  of  all  Professor  Boodin  states  the  following 
antinomy  of  serial  time. 

"If  you  assume  your  time  series  to  be  real,  then  you  have  the 
coexistence  of  an  indefinite  number  of  real  exclusive  moments  claim- 
ing the  same  space,  for  each  moment  of  time  claims  the  whole  of 
concrete  perception  with  its  dimensions.  But  reality  cannot  be  both 
one  and  many  in  the  same  respect,  hence  reality  becomes  impossible." 

"But  if  the  time  series  is  regarded  as  ideal,  then  we  have  an 
indefinite  number  of  descriptions  of  judgments  each  exclusive  of  the 
other,  and  each  referring  to  the  same  reality  at  the  same  time. 
Hence  our  descriptions  or  judgments,  claiming  to  be  diverse  and 
yet  of  one  reality,  in  the  same  respect,  are  contradictory  and  truth 
becomes  impossible." 

His  solution  is 

"to  regard  time  as  non-serial  or  prior  to  series,  and  to  regard 
series  as  a  derivative  construction." ' 

There  are,  I  think,  several  objections  to  this  theory. 
To  begin  with,  the  solution  itself  involves  the  contra- 
diction of  regarding  non-serial  time  as  prior  to  any- 
thing.   And  if  time  is  not  serial  in  the  sense  of  succes- 

*  Cosmic  Evolution  (Eeprinted  from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Aris- 
totelian Society),  Vol.  XXI. 

'  Time  and  Eeality,  A  Realistic  Universe. 
'  Time  and  Eeality. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         149 

sive,  then  all  Time  is  one  time,  one  now,  and  the  uni- 
verse stands  still.    Motion  in  space  will  be  impossible, 
because  there  will  be  no  time  for  its  successions  to  go 
into. 
Again,  Professor  Boodin  says  that 

"Space,  eternity,  the  simul  system  of  significance,  must  be  con- 
sidered as  derivative  in  relation  to  the  time  process,  which  ever 
looks  upon  itself  anew  under  the  same  formal  limitations." ' 

You  may  ask  how  a  spatial  system  is  to  be  derived 
from  constellations  of  objects  which  presuppose  space? 
Or  how  it  can  be  derivative  "in  relation  to  the  time 
process"  when,  "so  far  from  space  and  time  being 
identical  in  meaning  they  are  antithetical."  If  "in  re- 
lation to"  means  "in  contradistinction  from,"  how  can 
the  spatial  system  be  derivative  in  contradistinction 
from  the  time  process  which  was  said  to  be  derivative 
too?  And  how  can  a  time-process  be  non-serial,  non- 
successive?  And  a  "process  which  ever  looks  upon 
itself  anew  under  the  same  formal  limitations ' '  sounds 
uncommonly  like  succession  somehow  "creeping  in." 

Again, 

"time  is  the  negative  property  which  makes  all  systems  un- 
stable." ' 

This  because  it  reduces  them  to  the  past  and  future, 
to  the  ideal  constructions  of  memory  and  anticipation. 
But  Professor  Boodin  would  not  be  driven  to  this  view 
of  the  instability  of  all  events  save  the  present,  if,  like 
a  good  realist,  he  regarded  memory  and  anticipation 
as  a  perceiving  of  real  objects  in  a  real  time,  or  if,  like 
a  good  idealist,  he  brought  time  with  all  its  events  into 
the  one  comfortable  fold  of  conscious  experience.  On 
either  theory  both  systems  are  relatively  stable ;  while 
on  a  theory  of  non-serial  time  the  present  which  he  re- 
lies on  will  exist  at  the  expense  of  the  past  and  future, 

'  Time  and  Beality. 
*The  same. 


150  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

and  the  past  and  future  at  the  expense  of  the  present, 
in  an  impossible  and  suicidal  now. 

Professor  Boodin's  correlations  of  Space-Time  are 
the  exact  opposite  of  Professor  Alexander's.^  While 
Professor  Alexander  sees  time  breaking  up  and  divid- 
ing space,  and  space  giving  its  own  continuity  to  time, 
filling  up  the  gaps  in  time,  Professor  Boodin  sees  space 
as 

"a  system  of  co-existent  series,  whereas  time  is  non-serial." 

Consequently,  the  function  of  time  is  to  give  con- 
tinuity (of  motion)  to  space. 

"...  without  the  negation,  or  passing  of  time,  space  would  fall 
asunder  into  discrete  positions,  .  .  .  Time  is  bound  up  with  the 
fluent  or  continuity  aspect  of  our  world,  whereas  space  is  bound 
up  with  the  diversity  or  habit  aspect,  the  serial  aspect."  * 

If  we  choose  to  admit  the  necessity  of  Professor 
Boodin's  view,  and  the  equal  necessity  of  Professor 
Alexander's,  there  will  be  a  very  neat  little  antinomy 
here,  too.  But  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Profes- 
sor Alexander  has  it,  and  that  Professor  Boodin's 
view  of  time  is  comparatively  private  and  perverse. 

He  maintains  further  that  whereas  time 

"conditions  the  arising  of  spatial  series,  is  involved  in  the  ratio 
fiendi  of  space,  space,  as  a  system  of  relations  on  the  other  hand 
conditions  the  knowing  of  time,  is  the  ratio  cognoscendi  of  time."  * 

This  sounds  like  a  contradiction,  but  only  if  we  per- 
sist in  regarding  time  as  serial.  If  you  ask  how  non- 
serial  time  can  account  for  spatial  series,  the  answer 
is  that  spatial  series  are  not  successive  but  co-existent. 
Professor  Boodin  takes  a  static  view  of  series;  but 
combined  with  his  view  of  time  as  non-successive,  it 
makes  motion  more  impossible  than  ever. 

We  shall  see  how  his  solving  concept  of  non-serial 

^  See  below,  pp.  162-213. 

*  Time  and  Eeality. 

•  The  same. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         151 

time  works  if  we  examine  his  theory  of  time  as  caus- 
ality. 

As  he  started  with  the  antinomies  of  serial  time,  he 
now  starts  with  the  antinomies  of  causality.  Cause 
and  effect  cannot  be  the  same  or  nothing  would  hap- 
pen, you  would  have  one  unchanging  fact.  Cause  and 
effect  cannot  be  different  because  then  they  would  be 
two  facts,  and  causality  would  lie  outside  them. 

Mechanics  reduces  cause  and  effect  to  "static  equa- 
tions of  mass  and  position";  there  is  no  process  and 
therefore  no  time  factor:  logic  reduces  causality  to  a 
"sort  of  static  position  within  the  whole."  In  reci- 
procity nothing  passes,  but  cause  and  effect,  so  to 
speak,  take  in  each  other's  washing.  We  have  to  as- 
sume in  causality  a  mysterious  something  over  and 
above  that  somehow  does  the  trick,  and  which  is  not 
cancelled  out  in  the  equation.^ 

Professor  Boodin  asks :  "Can  time  be  so  completely 
excluded?"  .  .  .  He  "cannot  agree  with  Kant  that 
some  time  sequences  are  not  causal."  Does  he  mean 
that  time  is  this  something  over  and  above  f  That  it 
"creeps  in,"  dividing  cause  from  effect?  Then  he  is 
thrown  back  on  his  first  antinomy. 

Again : 

"Time  is  that  element  in  reality  which  makes  all  our  descriptions 
relative;  and  that  is  precisely  what  we  mean  in  the  last  analysis  by 
chance." ' 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  this  is  precisely  what 
we  mean  by  relativity.  Meanwhile  it  is  clear  that  Pro- 
fessor Boodin  regards  time  as  equivalent  to  chance. 

Time,  then,  is  chance.    But 

"The  concept  of  causality  involves  the  idea  of  connection." 

It 

"implies  the  concept  of  habit  as  well  as  that  of  chance  or  time 

^  Time  and  Beality,  pp.  48-53. 
'  The  same,  p.  54. 


152  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

.   .   .  such  habit  or  uniformity  on  the  part  of  nature  as  realises  ex- 
pectancy." 

And  behold  a  new  and  devastating  antinomy: 

"Make  uniformity  or  law  absolute  and  the  time  element  vanishes. 
Causality  becomes  lost  in  mechanical  reciprocity  or  ideal  system." 

Incidentally  such  uniformity 

"makes  consciousness  .  .  .  impossible.  If  again  you  emphasize 
the  chance  or  time  aspect  you  make  any  uniformity  of  law  or  neces- 
sary connection  impossible." 

His  conclusion  is  not  exactly  a  solution.  It  is,  of 
course  pragmatic,  and  when  did  pragmatism  solve  any 
ultimate  problem?  Causality  is  a  relative  and  approx- 
imate affair. 

It  is  good  intentioned. 

"Causality,  to  the  end,  means  to  deal  with  real  process,  but  it 
never  does." 

It 

"marks  the  struggle  of  the  self  to  synthesize  or  unify  the  process 
of  experience." 

Thus  you  have  a  subjective  attempt  at  unity  relating 
to  an  objective  "process."  But  why  process,  and  how 
a  unity  when  time  disintegrates  the  elements  of  all  se- 
quences? And  I  do  not  know  what  Professor  Boodin 
means  by  that  ambiguous  word  '* marks."  He  says 
"It"  (the  self,  presumably) 

"succeeds  in  this  attempt  at  unification  only  at  the  expense  of 
ignoring  the  very  process  aspect  of  existence  which  it  means  to 
explain.  Causality  thus  ceases  to  be  real  causality  and  becomes 
a  timeless  category."  ^ 

This  antinomy  bursts  out  again  as  freedom  and  ne- 
cessity, when  causality  appears  in  the  form  of  con- 
sciousness, of  will.  x\nd  again  Professor  Boodin 
throws  the  weight  of  his  argument  into  the  scale  of 
chance.  He  identifies  freedom  with  chance  and  chance 
with  time,  because 

'  Time  and  Beality,  pp.  53-55. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         153 

"Wherever  there  is  real  process,  where  events  happen,  there  we 
have  chance.  Time  and  chance,  used  in  this  ultimate  sense,  are 
identical." 

He  goes  on: 

"Is  it  true,  then,  that  chance  is  objective  and  necessity  sub- 
jective or  vice  versa?  Neither  is  true.  Both  are  subjective  mean- 
ings." 

Then  is  causality  a  subjective  meaning  that  we  give 
to  time?  How  can  this  be  if  wherever  there  is  "reaP' 
process  there  we  have  chance?  Or  is  chance  a  subjec- 
tive meaning  that  we  tack  on  to  real  process?  If  so, 
how  about  time?  If  time  is  chance  there  is  no  real 
time.  And,  observe,  this  sense  is  ** ultimate";  we  can- 
not get  back  of  it  to  something  that  will  restore  reality 
to  time.  It  seems  to  me  that  this,  to  say  the  least  of 
it,  is  a  very  compromising  position  for  a  realist.  And 
I  don't  see  how  Professor  Boodin  is  to  explain  it. 

In  the  end  there  turns  out  to  be  a  sort  of  social  or 
pragmatic  necessity  for  necessity  (and  for  chance). 
Necessity  so  that  the  course  of  nature  and  of  social 
nature  may  be  predictable.  Chance  so  that  experience 
may  not  become  stereotyped  by  habit,  but  that  new 
adjustments  may  arise. 

"Causality  thus  affords  a  synthesis  of  chance  and  necessity." 

This  is  all  very  well,  but  if  experience  be  once  tainted 
with  subjectivity  at  its  source,  I  do  not  see  how  any 
pragmatic  explanation  can  save  it  for  realism.  Take 
uniformity  alone.  Uniformity  is  uniformity  of  se- 
quence and  sequence  is  of  events  in  time.  But  time  is 
chance  and  chance  is  subjective.  The  new,  unexpected 
events  Professor  Boodin  has  already  handed  over  to 
chance  which  is  time,  so  where  does  real  process  come 
in? 

Again : 

"Real  process  and  real  futurity  lie  alike  outside  the  field  of 
scientific  description," 


154  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

so  that,  so  far  as  necessity  and  chance  relate  to  future 
needs  and  pragmatic  readjustments  they  cannot  be  sci- 
entifically described.  We  can  only  say:  Present  ex- 
perience being  what  is  is,  past  events  were  so  made  as 
to  be  capable  of  adjustment  to  this  present  which  was 
once  their  future.  And  at  this  rate,  in  spite  of  uni- 
formity, nothing  would  be  really  predictable.  We 
could  only  prophesy  after  the  event. 

All  these  direful  results  follow  from  Professor  Boo- 
din's  pragmatic  inability  to  make  up  his  mind  be- 
tween realism  and  idealism.  They  show — what  might 
have  been  expected — the  insufficiency  of  pragmatism 
in  dealing  with  any  ultimate  category  such  as  time. 

The  case  is  worse  if  we  fall  back  upon  Professor 
Boodin's  conclusion  that  ''Time  is  prior  to  serial  con- 
struction"; that  "our  serial  positions  are  a  posteriori 
abstractions,  ideal  constructions,"  and  that  "Process 
is  prior  to  ideal  construction." 

How  can  process  be  prior  to  serial  positions'?  How 
can  process  proceed  without  serial  positions?  If  time 
is  not  a  succeeding,  if  time  is  also  duration,  yet  all  suc- 
cession is  in  time  and  of  time.  If  time  were  all  one,  all 
pure  duration,  with  no  serial  positions,  no  instants  be- 
fore and  after,  events  would  happen  just  at  any  old 
time,  and  one  time  would  be  as  good  as  another;  the 
same  event  might  be  happening  all  the  time,  or  all 
events  might  be  happening  in  any  one  time ;  in  fact  no 
events  would  be  happening  in  any  sense  of  sequence 
which  is  process.  Supposing  them  to  happen  at  all,  no- 
body would  know  they  would  happen,  or  whether  they 
had  happened ;  events  would  be  unrecognisable  and  un- 
predictable. It  is  not  serial  time  that  destroys  the  uni- 
formity of  nature,  but  time  credited  with  an  unnatural 
duration. 

I  cannot  but  think  that  in  identifying  time  with 
chance  Professor  Boodin  fails  to  distinguish  between 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         155 

time  and  events  in  time,  and  that  the  same  confusion 
underlies  his  treatment  of  the  antinomy  of  co-existent 
simultaneity  and  succession.  He  seems  to  me  to  be 
further  mixing  up  one  kind  of  order  in  space,  which  is 
purely  simultaneous  and  static,  with  the  order  of 
events  in  time  and  the  double  order  of  events  in  time 
and  space — the  occupation  of  successive  positions — 
which  are  not  only  purely  successive  but  owe  their  suc- 
cessiveness to  their  time  character.  The  sense  in  which 
Professor  Boodin  holds  that  all  series  are  static  is  not, 
as  he  thinks,  a  real  but  an  ideal  sense.  It  is  conscious- 
ness that  keeps  the  members  of  a  series  together,  hold- 
ing down  each  one  in  its  place,  so  that  all  are  known 
as  members  of  a  series.  A  series  taking  place,  whether 
in  consciousness  or  outside  it,  is  essentially  an  affair 
of  before  and  after  and  in  its  temporal  aspect  irreversi- 
ble; it  is  Professor  Boodin 's  "process  in  the  making." 

Certainly  ' '  series  and  order  themselves  involve  ideal 
construction  and  presuppose  time  as  a  datum,"  if  by 
series  and  order  you  mean  the  series  and  order  of 
events  in  time.  Even  the  series  and  order  of  instants 
in  time  presuppose  the  time  of  which  they  are  instants, 
just  as  the  series  and  order  of  objects  in  space  presup- 
pose the  series  and  order  of  their  positions.  These, 
again  presuppose  the  space  in  which  they  are  posi- 
tions ;  space-time  or  point-instants  being  just  as  ideal 
or  as  real  as  you  choose  to  take  them. 

And  Professor  Boodin 's  perverse  and  peculiar  the- 
ory of  time  lands  him  in  a  still  more  perverse  and  pe- 
culiar theory  of  number.    He  says : 

"It  is  not  true  that  each  moment  in  history  includes  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  preceding  moments  in  the  way  each  step  in  the  num- 
ber series  includes  the  previous.  Old  age  does  not  include  childhood 
and  youth  in  the  way  that  3  includes  1  or  2,  This  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  number  series  is  constructed  in  conformity  to  voluntary 
purpose,  expresses  a  formal  law  of  the  activity  of  the  self,  whereas 
the  concrete  historic  series  involves  involuntary  elements,  must 
conform  to  certain  objective  data.     This  involuntary  and  uncertain 


156  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

aspect  of  history  is  due  partly  to  the  creeping  in  of  time  and  partly 
to  the  pluralistic  character  of  the  world."  ^ 

You  would  have  thought  that  if  ever  there  were  a 
construction  that  bore  no  earthly  relation  to  voluntary 
purpose,  that  was  a  thing  apart,  and  on  any  realistic 
theory  utterly  apart,  from  the  activity  of  the  self  and 
beyond  its  control,  it  was  a  number  series,  and  that 
"the  way  that  3  includes  1  and  2"  was  a  way  of  iron 
necessity.  You  would  have  thought  that,  so  far  from 
time  ** creeping  in"  to  upset  our  calculations,  all  our 
calculations  (even  number  itself)  were  based  on  the 
order  of  instants  in  time.  You  would  have  thought 
that  if  there  was  a  series  in  which  voluntary  action 
tended  to  make  most  things  exciting  and  uncertain  it 
was  the  historic  series ;  and  that  if  anything  tended  to 
subdue  this  excitement  and  correct  this  uncertainty  it 
was  the  creeping  in  of  time.  I  do  not  know  the  whence 
and  whither  of  my  existence ;  but  I  do  know  that  within 
its  mortal  time  limit  the  indubitable  certainties  are 
dates ;  all  past  and  present  and  some  future  dates.  I 
do  not  know  whether  I  shall  make  this  book  three  hun- 
dred or  three  hundred  and  fifty  pages  long,  nor 
whether  anybody  will  be  rash  enough  to  publish  it,  but 
I  do  know  that  if  my  present  time  rate  and  time  length 
of  writing  continue  I  shall  finish  it  in  time  for  publica- 
tion in  the  autumn.  I  know  how  much  time  will  elapse 
between  certain  events,  for  example,  my  departure 
from  King's  Cross  and  my  arrival  at  Edinburgh.  I 
know  that,  short  of  unforeseen  catastrophe,  I  shall 
breakfast  at  nine  o'clock  tomorrow,  and  that,  even  if 
unforeseen  catastrophe  arises,  time  will  have  no  more 
to  do  with  it  than  to  fix  its  date  and  thus  render  its 
uncertainty  certain.  You  may  even  say  it  is  just  this 
element  of  temporal  succession,  of  ruthless  before  and 
after,  that  in  time  reveals  the  necessity  of  events.    I 

^  Time  and  Beality,  p.  34. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         157 

can  go  forwards  and  backwards  in  time,  and  my  mem- 
ories and  anticipations  will  be  precise  and  certain,  very 
much  according  to  the  precision  and  certainty  of  th^ 
time  element  in  them.  Thus  time  confers  fully  as  much 
certainty  on  experience  as  space. 

True,  an  unknown  future  event  will  have  to  happen, 
if  it  happens  at  all,  at  some  moment  in  time  uncerti- 
fied; but  it  will  also  probably  have  to  happen  in  un- 
certified space  too,  so  that  space  will,  so  far,  be  every 
bit  as  chancey.  ( Chancier ;  for  not  all  events  that  hap- 
pen need  happen  in  space,  though  they  must  happen 
in  time.  And  this  spatial  consideration  makes  it  clear 
that  chance  refers  to  events  and  existences  themselves 
and  not  to  time.)  True,  the  screen  of  time  separates 
and  conceals  from  us  the  face  of  future  events;  true, 
the  unforeseen  comes  out  of  time  like  a  bolt  from  the 
blue ;  but  it  is  not  time  but  some  other  unseen  complex 
of  events  that  shoots  the  bolt.  Chance  is  not  in  any 
sense  causal,  it  is  a  name  for  our  ignorance  of  connec- 
tions and  sequences,  just  as  necessity  is  a  name  for  our 
ignorance  of  conditions.  Though  temporary,  it  is  no 
more  temporal  than  a  bishop's  blasphemy  or  any  other 
unlooked-for  happening  in  time.  I  do  not  think  that 
any  antinomy  is  solved  by  denying  the  serial  character 
of  time  taken  in  itself,  or  by  calling  time  ''chance"  and 
"absolute,  dynamic  non-being."  This  view  leads  ulti- 
mately to  the  denial  of  all  truth  and  to  the  pragmatic 
criterion. 

"This  absolute  non-being  is  forced  upon  us,  we  have  seen,  by 
the  instability  of  our  universe,  including  the  universe  of  truth; 
it  is  invented  to  account  for  passing  away  and  novelty  ...  we  need 
a  negative  property,  as  well  as  a  positive  property  to  make  change 
possible." 

I  think  it  is  Professor  Boodin  who  has  forced  on  him- 
self and  invented  the  absolute  non-being  of  time, 
through  his  refusal  to  admit  consciousness  as  the  con- 


158  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

tinuum  of  time.    Rather  than  face  the  dismal  conse- 
quences he  is  driven  to  his  pragmatic  theory  of  truth : 

"its  dependence  upon  the  larger  demands  for  life,  and  its  sub- 
ordination, if  need  be,  to  this  demand." 

We  shall  see  that  another  deduction  can  be  drawn 
from  the  analysis  of  space-time:  whatever  else  truth 
may  be,  it  is  truth  and  independent  of  life  and  our 
demand. 

ill 

Professor  Boodin's  theory,  so  far  from  affording  a 
The  solution,  leaves  us  with  the  antinomies  in  all  their  nak- 
compact  edness  on  our  hands.  We  are  still  haunted  by  the 
consid-    ghost  of  serial  time. 

ered  That  ghost,  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell  says,  has  been  laid 

by   the    Cantor-Dedekind   definition    of   the    compact 
series,  the  infinite  continuum. 

Let  us  look  again  at  this  definition,  undeterred  b^^ 
its  mathematical  prestige,  and  see  whether  it  really 
does  provide  an  unbroken  continuum,  such  as  would 
solve  the  Kantian  antinomies  and  enable  Zeno's  pro- 
cessions to  meet,  his  arrow  to  fly,  and  his  Achilles  to 
overtake  the  tortoise. 

Between  any  two  points  in  space  or  any  two  instants 
in  time  there  is  an  infinite  number  of  points  or  instants. 
The  "catch"  of  the  antinomies,  we  remember,  lay 
in  the  relation  of  "nextness"  in  the  point-instant  cor- 
respondence. No  possible  increase  of  velocity  will 
take  you  farther  than  the  next  point  at  one  instant,  or 
quicker  than  one  instant  to  the  next  point;  so  that 
there  can  be  no  movement,  swift  or  slow,  only  a  dis- 
connected series  of  stations  at  points.  There  cannot 
even  be  successive  occupations  of  points  in  the  series, 
since  the  disconnection  is  such  that  between  points 
there  is  no  space,  and  between  instants  no  time ;  there 
is  nothing  to  bridge  the  gaps. 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         159 

Now  the  Cantor-Dedekind  definition  does  away  with 
nextness.  If  between  points  A  and  B  there  is  an  infi- 
nite number  of  points,  if  between  instants  A'  and  B' 
there  is  an  infinite  number  of  instants,  B  and  A  and 
A'  and  B'  will  not  respectively  be  next  each  other ;  and 
if  you  say  the  same  of  any  two  points,  no  two  points 
will  ever  be  next  each  other.  You  have  bridged  the 
gap  between  the  finites  with  infinity.  You  can  do  the 
same  with  event-particles  and  so  ensure,  on  Professor 
Whitehead's  theory,  the  continuity  of  events. 

At  first  sight  I  admit  it  looks  as  if  the  compact  series 
had  done  the  trick,  and  as  if  the  definition  excluded 
contradiction.  Certainly  you  will  never  get  anything 
closer  than  space  and  time  packed  with  all  those  infini- 
ties of  points  and  instants.  And  so  long  as  you  fix 
your  attention  on  the  points  and  instants,  without  con- 
sidering their  relations  and  conditions,  you  cannot 
escape  this  conclusion. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  you  have  only  exchanged  the 
relation  of  nextness  for  the  relation  of  betweenness  (if 
indeed  you  have  got  rid  of  it  at  all),  and  a  definite 
condition,  the  existence  of  A  and  B,  or  A'  and  B',  for 
an  indefinite  one,  any  two  points  or  any  two  instants. 

If  there  is  no  betweenness  you  cannot  shovel  in  your 
infinities ;  betweenness  constitutes  as  definite  a  gap  as 
nextness,  and  for  every  two  points  or  instants  or  event- 
particles  you  will  have  an  infinity  of  betweennesses ; 
that  is  to  say,  you  have  not  avoided  discreteness,  you 
have  still  just  as  much  discreteness  as  continuity. 

Nor  will  you  really  have  avoided  nextness.  To  be 
sure,  a  definite  A  and  B,  or  P  and  Q,  or  V  and  W  will 
no  longer  be  next  each  other,  but  some  indefinite  point- 
instant  X  will  still  be  next  some  indefinite  point-instant 
2/,  and  by  raising  their  number  to  infinity  you  have 
only  multiplied  nextness  and  discreteness.  And  there 
is  another  fatal  property  of  the  compact  series.     It 


160  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  iv 

excludes  infinitesimals.  You  cannot  therefore  say  that 
you  are  approaching  any  point  by  distances  infinitely 
small ;  the  idea  of  quantitative,  measurable  distance  is 
ruled  out,  and  with  it  the  idea  of  any  approximate 
continuity.  Between  any  two  points  or  instants  you 
have  all  those  infinities  of  points  or  instants. 

So  mark  what  happens.  In  the  case  of  Achilles, 
instead  of  a  simple  contradiction  you  have  a  dilemma. 
Achilles  will  still  be  unable  to  overtake  the  tortoise 
because  of  nextness  camouflaged  as  betweenness ; 
neither  will  he  be  able  to  get  from  point  A  to  B  in 
instants  A'  and  B'  at  all,  because  A  is  divided  from 
B  by  an  infinite  number  of  points  and  A'  and  B'  by 
an  infinite  number  of  instants.  To  say  that  he  can 
do  it  in  an  infinite  number  of  instants  means  that  he 
can  never  actually  do  it.  Neither  can  the  tortoise,  so 
that,  once  start  them  moving,  Achilles  and  the  tortoise 
can  never,  never  stop. 

But — here  is  the  dilemma — neither  can  they  start; 
for  an  infinite  number  of  points  removes  their  indefi- 
nite starting  point  x  from  that  indefinite  point  y  which 
would  be  the  first  step  in  their  progress  if  progress 
there  could  be.  And  as  their  starting  point  x  is  simi- 
larly removed  from  any  preceding  point  w  they  never 
can  have  moved  at  all,  but  must  have  existed  and  must 
continue  to  exist  on  x  throughout  all  eternity,  and 
goodness  only  knows  how  they  got  there. 

The  same  things  will  apply  to  the  movements  of  the 
arrow  and  the  processions,  and  to  the  event-particles 
of  Professor  Whitehead's  world.  And  the  Kantian 
antinomies  will  remain  unsolved,  though  they  must  be 
stated  in  a  slightly  different  form. 

Thus :  The  world  has  a  beginning  in  space  and  time, 
because  if  it  hadn't  it  would  be  separated  from  any 
point-instant  here  and  now  by  an  infinite  number  of 


IV  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         161 

spaces  and  of  times  and  could  have  no  existence  at  any- 
one point-instant. 

The  world  has  neither  beginning  nor  end  in  space 
and  time  because,  if  it  had,  at  any  point-instant  here 
and  now  it  would  be  separated  from  its  end  and  its 
beginning  by  an  infinite  number  of  spaces  and  an 
infinite  number  of  times. 

By  far  the  nearest  approach  to  a  solution  is  pro- 
vided by  Professor  Alexander's  correlations  of  Space- 
Time.  But  Professor  Alexander's  theory  requires  a 
long  chapter  to  itself. 

NOTE: — Professor  Boodin'e  theory  of  Time  ie  only  a  small  part 
of  his  brilliant  contributions  to  evolutionary  realism.  It  should  be 
clearly  understood  that  his  general  theory  does  not  stand  or  fall  by  it, 
and  cannot  be  touched  by  any  criticisms  of  this  point  alone. 


Time 


V 

SPACE,  TIME  AND  DEITY 


I  do  not  see  why  the  devout  idealist  should  not  con- 
space-  ceive  an  admiration  for  Professor  Boodin's  theory 
of  evolution,  nor  admit  the  momentary  temptation  to 
surrender  to  Professor  Whitehead  and  wallow  in  the 
comfort  of  his  concept  of  nature.  Elsewhere  I  have 
spoken  of  the  irresistible  fascination  of  Mr.  Bertrand 
Russell's  pluralistic  realism  and  confessed  to  some- 
thing like  remorse  for  certain  inevitable  disagreements 
with  Professor  Bergson  and  William  James.  I  am 
increasingly  aware  of  the  risks  which  attend  this  ad- 
venture of  attacking  new  realism.  Even  now  I  cannot 
get  over  my  fear  that  Professor  Whitehead's  mathe- 
matics may  yet  do  something  to  me  that  I  shouldn't 
like. 

I  do  not  feel,  in  precisely  the  same  way,  that  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  may  be  concealing  himself  in  the 
Fourth  Dimension  with  a  deadly  battery  of  equations ; 
and  yet,  the  idealist  who  sets  out  to  refute  him  stands 
in  even  greater  danger  of  being  converted  to  realism. 
At  moments,  for  example,  when  he  is  exhibiting  the 
correlations  of  Space-Time  or  the  stupendous  unfold- 
ing of  his  Deity,  you  are  almost  overwhelmed  by  the 
temptation  to  forsake  all  and  follow  him.  Not  because 
of  any  comfort  that  he  gives  you.  The  encounter  with 
Space,  Time  and  Deity  is  the  most  thoroughly  uncom- 
fortable, the  most  upsetting  and  dislocating  experience 
that  the  devotee  of  idealism  could  well  undergo.    There 

162 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         163 

has  been  nothing  like  it  since  the  outbreak  of  Kant's 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason,  nothing  to  compare  with  Pro- 
fessor Alexander's  work  but  the  work  of  the  greatest 
system-makers.     Of  Spinoza.     Of  Kant.     Of  Hegel. 

For  this  is  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  philosophy 
that  reahsm  has  got  itself  built  into  a  system.  Mr. 
Bertrand  Russell  has  given  us  brilliant  essays  in 
realism.  So  have  Dr.  Moore  and  Professor  Broad. 
We  owe  it  to  Professor  Whitehead  that  the  Prolegom- 
ena to  any  future  metaphysics  have  been  settled  with 
scientific  authority  and  precision.  These  four  have 
done  more  to  set  realism  going  than  any  living  philos- 
opher beside  Professor  Alexander ;  but  they  have  not 
aimed  at  building  realism  up  into  a  great  system.  And 
Professor  Alexander's  is  a  great  and  very  perfect 
system,  close-linked,  creating  an  almost  perfect  illu- 
sion of  inevitableness,  and,  as  a  sheer  piece  of  philo- 
sophic architecture,  exquisite  in  its  proportions.  It 
is  all  one ;  solid  block  on  solid  block ;  no  untidy  excres- 
cences that  refuse  to  fall  into  line.  When  you  have  got 
over  the  incredible  surprise  of  it,  the  psychological 
effect  is  one  of  almost  complete  intellectual  satisfac- 
tion. Professor  Alexander  knows  how  to  convey  the 
passion  of  its  metaphysical  adventure.  He  has  pas- 
sages that  fairly  vibrate.  And  it  is  hard  even  for  the 
devotee  of  idealism  to  resist  his  appeal.  Space,  Time 
and  Deity  is  a  new  and  beautiful  thing  in  philosophy ; 
hence  the  absorbing  interest  and  the  excitement. 

It  is,  unlike  other  realisms,  a  philosophy  of  evolu- 
tion, while  it  agrees  with  all  of  them  in  keeping  mind 
out  of  the  essential  process.  Professor  Alexander 
denies  that  mind  is  in  any  way  an  ultimate  or  a  unique 
reality.  Half  the  interest  and  excitement  come  from 
wondering  how  on  earth  he  is  going  to  get  along  with- 
out it.  For,  again  unlike  many  realists.  Professor 
Alexander  does  more  than  merely  affirm  that  the  world 


164  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

exists  independently  of  mind  and,  up  to  the  actual 
appearance  of  consciousness,  has  been  evolved  without 
it.  He  is  not  content  with  the  affirmation,  the  assur- 
ance that  it  is  so,  nor  with  the  irresistible  feeling  that 
it  must  be  so,  nor  yet  with  the  pragmatic  belief  that 
it  is  right  for  life  and  conduct  that  it  should  be  so. 
Most  realists  fight  very  shy  of  explaining  in  detail  how 
it  actually  came  to  be  so.  Even  Professor  Whitehead's 
constructions  begin  and  end  with  four-dimensional 
geometry.  But  Professor  Alexander  shows  us  the 
process  as  it  may  be  supposed  to  have  actually  hap- 
pened. He  builds  his  universe,  or  rather,  he  records 
its  building,  from  the  simplest  elements  up  to  the 
moment  of  mind's  emergence  on  the  scene  and  after. 
For,  henceforth,  mind  is  not  to  be  kept  out ;  it  takes  its 
part  as  one,  though  only  one  bit  of  the  whole  complex. 
The  simplest,  ultimate  elements  are  Space  and  Time. 
To  these  all  things,  life  and  mind  included,  are  re- 
ducible "without  residue."  Not  to  Space  and  Time 
as  separate  entities,  but  to  Space  and  Time  taken 
together.  For  Space  and  Time  are  not  really  two 
entities,  but  two  aspects  of  one  entity.  Space  and  Time 
by  themselves  are  unreal  abstractions  from  the  one 
indivisible  reality  which  is  Space-Time.  Space-Time 
is  the  a  priori  stuff  from  which  all  things  are  made, 
the  universal  ''matrix"  in  which  matter  ''crystallises" 
and  from  which,  when  it  has  reached  a  certain  appro- 
priate complexity,  the  empirical  qualities  emerge;  to 
be  followed  in  their  turn,  when  they  too  are  suitably 
compounded,  first  by  life,  then  by  consciousness. 
Within  the  one  reality  of  Space-Time,  Time  is  the 
"restless  element"  which  drives  Space  to  generation. 
"The  world  is  begotten  by  Time  out  of  Space."  Mat- 
ter is  Space  crystallised,  and  Time  is  its  motion,  and 
its  motion,  again,  is  generation.  It  is  the  "restless- 
ness of  Time"  which  causes  new  things,   empirical 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         165 

quality,  and  life,  and  mind  or  spirit  to  emerge.  And 
the  process  does  not  end  here.  Time's  restlessness, 
which  is  infinite,  sweeps  mind  and  spirit  onward  till 
their  new  complexity  breaks  out  in  the  form  of  Deity, 
which  is  a  new  thing,  not  mind  or  spirit  or  conscious- 
ness, but  higher  than  they;  it  causes  Deity  itself  to 
flower  in  forms  of  higher  and  higher  perfection.  In 
this  process  Deity  is  evermore  ahead,  and  the  world, 
with  its  accomplished  forms,  evermore  behind.  So  that 
Deity  is  and  remains  a  *'nisus,"  a  perpetual  straining 
for  perfection,  an  everlastingly  unrealised  ideal. 

Now  at  first  sight  it  looks  as  if  the  theory  provided 
at  least  three  opportunities  for  the  idealist  to  put  his 
foot  down  and  protest  that  such  things  cannot  be.  You 
cannot,  except  by  some  miracle,  conjure  quality  out  of 
**unqualitied"  matter,  nor  life  out  of  non-living  mat- 
ter, nor  consciousness  out  of  unconsciousness,  to  say 
nothing  of  non-spiritual  Deity  out  of  spirit.  But  I 
think  if  you  have  once  given  in  to  the  initial  assumption 
of  the  crystallisation  of  matter  from  pure  immaterial 
Space-Time,  you  need  hardly  cavil  at  the  rest.  Once 
grant  that  initial  assumption  and  the  rest  of  the  system 
is  a  matter  of  such  careful  dovetailing  that  the  idealist 
will  find  it  hard  to  get  his  knife  in  anywhere  and  prize 
it  open.  I  do  think  that  the  alleged  emergence  of 
quality  or  life  or  mind  is  miraculous,  but  I  do  not  think 
it  is  more  miraculous  than  the  emergence  of  matter 
from  pure  Space-Time.  The  whole  system  is  founded 
on  the  correlations  of  Time  and  Space  so  that  there 
is  no  way  of  upsetting  it  unless  you  can  first  of 
all  show  that  if  you  assume  nothing  but  Space-Time 
these  correlations  are  impossible.  You  have,  in  short, 
to  restore  the  antinomies,  if  you  can.  And  I  think  you 
can.  I  do  not  say  that  the  theory  cannot  be  refuted 
on  the  higher  levels,  but  this  will  not  be  the  shortest 
or  the  surest  way.    That  its  vulnerable  points  lie  round 


166  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

about  the  alleged  continuity  is  shown  by  the  care  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  has  taken  to  safeguard  this  issue. 

Observe  that  the  whole  process,  which  ends,  or  rath- 
er, never  does  end,  in  Deity,  begins  with  pure  Space- 
Time.^  We  start  on  a  level  where  even  matter  and 
motion  are  not  yet.  Obviously,  if  Space  and  Time 
contain  insoluble  contradictions  it  will  be  impossible  to 
evolve  out  of  them  a  real  universe.  So,  first  of  all, 
Professor  Alexander  has  to  solve  the  antinomies  of 
Space  and  Time. 

They  arise,  he  maintains,  only  if  we  take  Space  and 
Time  separately,  and  are  solved  if  we  take  them,  as 
they  are  in  experience,  together.     We  have  to  realise 

"that  Space  is  in  its  very  nature  temporal  and  Time  spatial."  * 

"...  Now  if  Time  existed  in  complete  independence  and  of  its 
own  right  there  could  be  no  continuity  in  it.  .  .  .  K  it  were  noth- 
ing more  than  bare  Time  it  would  consist  of  perishing  instants. 
Instead  of  a  continuous  Time,  there  would  be  nothing  more  than  an 
instant,  a  now,  which  was  perpetually  being  renewed.  But  Time 
would  then  be  for  itself  and  for  an  observer  a  mere  now,  and  would 
contain  neither  earlier  nor  later."  * 

You  would  have  thought  that  whatever  it  might  be 
for  itself,  for  an  observer  with  all  his  faculties  Time 
would  not  be  a  mere  now,  but  that  (assuming  the  pos- 
sibility of  an  observer  of  pure  Time)  earlier  and  later, 
past  and  present,  would  be  held  together  in  his  memory 
and  the  future  with  them  in  his  anticipation.  But  no ; 
Professor  Alexander  says  that  memory  will  not  help 
us  here. 

"For  memory  cannot  tell  us  that  events  were  connected  which  have 
never  been  together."  * 

To  be  sure,  in  actual  experience  the  observer  always 

^ ' '  Now  in  order  to  examine  empirically  what  Space  and  Time  are,  it  is 
necessary  to  consider  them  by  themselves  in  abstraction  from  the  bodies 
and  events  that  occupy  them,  .  .  .  "  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I, 
p.  37. 

*  The  same,   p.   44. 

*  The  same,  p.  45, 

*  The  same. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         167 

has  a  background  of  Space  to  mark  Time  off  against, 
as  it  were ;  but,  since  a  mere  background  may  be  con- 
ceived as  existing  independently  of  Time,  I  take  it  that 
Professor  Alexander  means  considerably  more  than 
that  if  Time  is  to  be  spatial.  And  he  is  in  fact  assum- 
ing the  possibility  of  a  pure  Time  without  any  observer. 
We  shall  see  whether  taking  Space  as  Time  without 
consciousness  or  memory  removes  these  difficulties. 
Meanwhile,  observe  that  Time  and  Space  are  at  any 
rate  together  in  perception  and  are  only  divided  by  an 
intellectual  process  of  abstraction. 
Again, 

"If,  therefore,  the  past  instant  is  not  to  be  lost  as  it  otherwise 
would  be,  or  rather  since  this  is  not  the  case  in  fact,  there  must  needs 
be  some  continuum  other  than  Time  which  can  secure  and  sustain  the 
togetherness  of  past  and  present,  of  earlier  and  later.  .  .  .  This 
other  form  of  being  is  Space."  * 

The  same  thing  holds  good  of  Space.  Space  without 
Time  would  be  a  mere  blank.  In  such  a  Space  there 
would  be  no  distinction  of  parts,  no  distinct  bodies  and 
no  motion  of  bodies. 

"For  Space  taken  by  itself  in  its  distinctive  character  of  a  whole  of 
co-existence  has  no  distinction  of  parts.  As  Time  in  so  far  as  it 
was  temporal  became  a  mere  'now,'  so  Space  so  far  as  merely 
spatial  becomes  a  blank.  .  .  .  There  must  therefore  be  some  form 
of  existence,  some  entity  not  itself  spatial,  which  distinguishes  and 
separates  the  parts  of  Space.  This  other  form  of  existence  is 
Time." ' 

As  it  was  Space  that,  enduring  throughout  all  the 
instants  of  Time,  united  them  in  a  continuum  of  time, 
so  Time,  that  cuts  across  this  blankness  of  Space, 
divides  it  up  into  spaces.  It  is  Time  that  drives  Space 
on  to  connect  with  other  spaces  in  a  continuity,  yet  it 
is  also  Time  which  breaks  up  Space  and  makes  it  infi- 
nitely divisible.     We  are  to  understand  that   Space 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  46. 
^  The  same,  p.  47. 


168  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

''holds  down"  the  moments  of  Time  as  they  pass,  and 
keeps  the  past  and  future  together  with  the  present.^ 

But  does  it?  For  all  its  spaciousness  Space  cannot 
hold  down  more  instants  than  one  at  a  time.  The  past 
has  gone  from  it,  its  grip  on  the  future  has  not  yet 
begun. 

Nor  should  we  give  in  too  readily  to  the  statement 
that  Space  as  pure  coexistence  has  no  distinction  of 
parts.  Coexistence  is  juxtaposition  of  points,  and  I 
cannot  see  how  its  points  are  to  be  conjured  away  from 
Space  in  the  mere  absence  of  Time.  Only  when  you 
begin  to  move  about  among  them  can  you  talk  of  Time 
discriminating  the  points  of  Space,  which  after  all  only 
means  that  it  takes  time  to  get  from  one  point  to 
another.  But  getting  from  one  point  to  another  is  the 
very  opposite  of  coexisting,  inasmuch  as  a  point  can 
only  occupy  one  position  at  a  time. 

Let  us  go  back  to  Space-Time, 

"Without  Space  there  would  be  no  connection  in  Time.  Without 
Time  there  would  be  no  points  to  connect."  * 

Not  only  no  discrimination  of  points,  you  see,  but  no 
points  to  discriminate.  So  much  for  coexistence  in 
Space, 

"It  follows  that  there  is  no  instant  of  time  without  a  position 
in  Space  and  no  point  of  Space  without  an  instant  of  Time.  I 
shall  say  that  a  point  occurs  at  an  instant  and  that  an  instant  oc- 
cupies a  point.  There  are  only  point-instants  or  pure  events.  In 
like  manner  there  is  no  mere  Space  or  mere  Time,  but  only  Space- 
Time  or  Time-Space."' 

But  this  conception  is  purely  provisional.  If  there 
were  nothing  but  this  one-to-one,  point-instant  corre- 
spondence, both  Time  and  Space  would  be  broken  up 
and  be  neither  successive  nor  continuous.  There  would 
be  nothing  but  a  point  now,  and  a  point  now,  and  a 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  258. 
^  The  same,  p.  48. 
'  The  same. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         169 

point  now,  without  relation  or  connection,  both  perish- 
ing as  they  were  born. 

-If  the  point  corresponded  uniquely  to  the  i^^^^^i^^^the^  Space 
the  characfer  of  the  instant  and  Space  would  cease  to  be  the  Space 

•we  know."  * 

For  on  Professor  Alexander's  view  it  is  the  perma- 
nence of  the  point,  its  -repetition"  throughout  many 
instants  which  secures  it  from  -perishmg"  utterly. 
Its  self -identical  presence  at  this  moment  is  the  witness 
to  the  moment  which  has  passed. 

This  is  evident;  but  I  do  not  find  it  quite  so  easy  to 
follow  Professor  Alexander  when  he  goes  on  to  argue 
that  if  the  instant  corresponded  uniquely  to  the  pomt, 
if  it  never  occupied  more  than  one  point, 

"Time  would  share  the  character  of  Space,  be  infected  with  bare 
blank  e'xtendedness,  would  in  fact  be  mere  extension  and  cease 
fn  hP  the  Time  we  know,  which  is  duration  in  succession  in  oraer 
that  it  should  bl  in  its  own  nature  successive  and  so  be  able  to  dis- 
crfmiitepotits  iii  Space,  the  instant  of  Time  must  be  repeated  in 
or  occupy  more  points  than  one. 

Surely  it  is  the  other  way  about.    It  is  just  this 
occupying  by  one  instant  of  more  points  than  one  which 
gives  extension  or  spaciousness  to  Time,  and  m  this 
spaciousness  its  successiveness  or  time  character  is 
lost-  for  every  one  instant  will  cover  many  points,  m 
fact' every  one  instant  will  cover  all  the  space  there  is. 
And  if  we  could  really  tie  up  pure  Time  with  pure 
Space   there   would   be   no    successiveness    of    Time 
Either  Time  must  have  an  instant  to  instant  movement 
of  its  own  which  is  not  conferred  on  it  by  Space,  or 
it  must  exist  purely  in  relation  to  events;  for  example, 
to  the  movements  of  bodies  from  point  to  point  m 

Space.  ,  ..,    ^1 

(It  must  be  noted  that  in  dealing  with  the  more 
complex  spatio-temporal  relations,   for  example,  the 

'■Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  49. 
''The  same,  p.  50. 


170  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

relations  of  the  dimensions  of  Space,  Professor  Alex- 
ander has  shown  triumphantly  the  mutual  interdepend- 
ence of  Space  and  Time.  The  whole  of  this  exposition 
is  masterly  and  should  not  be  missed.)^ 

But  there  are  further  and  more  exciting  implications. 

"Space  must  be  regarded  as  generated  in  Time,  or,  if  the  ex- 
pression be  preferred,  by  Time.  For  Time  is  the  source  of  movement. 
Space  may  then  be  imaged  as  the  trail  of  Time,  so  long  as  it  is 
remembered  that  there  could  be  no  Time  without  a  Space  in  which 
its  trail  is  left."  ' 

Now,  how  can  Time  generate  Space  if  Space  is  es- 
sential to  and  coexistent  with  it?  In  this  case  there 
cannot  be  Time  first  and  then  Space.  And  indeed 
Professor  Alexander  presently  abandons  this  notion  of 
generation. 

"To  suppose  that  Time  generates  new  Space  is  to  neglect  the 
infinity  of  Time  (and  indeed  of  Space)."* 

And  to  suppose  that  Time  has  generated  old  Space 

is  to  suppose  a  previously  existing  Time.     To  avoid 

this  difficulty  Professor  Alexander  flies  to  the  theory 

of   displacement   and   re-distribution   in   Space-Time. 

Thus: 

"In  a  line  of  advance  c  b  a  we  have  the  displacement  of  the  pres- 
ent from  c  through  b  to  a.  .  .  .  This  is  the  meaning  of  motion. 
Points  do  not  of  course  move  in  the  system  of  points,  but  they 
change  their  time  coefficient.  What  we  ordinarily  call  motion  of  a 
body  is  the  occupation  by  that  body  of  points  which  successively  be- 
come present,  so  that  at  each  stage  the  points  traversed  have  dif- 
ferent time  values  when  the  line  of  motion  is  taken  as  a  whole.  ..."  * 

"In  this  way  we  conceive  of  growth  in  Time  or  the  history  of 
the  Universe  as  a  whole,  or  any  part  of  it,  as  a  continuous  redis- 
tribution of  instants  of  Time  among  points  of  Space.  There  is  no 
new  Space  to  be  generated  as  Time  goes  on,  but  within  the  whole 
of  Space  or  the  part  of  it  the  instants  of  Time  are  differently  ar- 
ranged, so  that  points  become  different  point  instants,  and  instants 
also  become  different  point -instants."  * 

^See  Appendix  II,  pp.  315-317. 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  61. 
'  The   same,  p.   62. 

*  The  same,  p.  61. 
•The  same,  p.  63. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         171 

Now  we  see  how  it  is  that  Time  gives  its  values  to 
the  points  of  Space,  how  it  discriminates  and  intro- 
duces diversity  into  that  blankness.  It  does  not  do 
this  of  itself,  as  Professor  Alexander's  theory  assumes, 
but  only  through  a  body  in  motion.  It  is  to  the  body 
in  motion  that  points  successively  become  present; 
and  surely  it  is  the  body  in  motion  that  by  its  succes- 
sive occupation  of  points,  by  the  fact  that  it  is  now 
here,  now  there,  its  inability  to  occupy  more  than  one 
point  at  one  instant — surely  it  is  this  behaviour  and 
this  character  of  bodies  that  confers  their  time  value 
on  the  points'? 

Points  do  not  move  in  the  system  of  points.  Left 
to  themselves,  they  are  all  present  at  every  successive 
instant;  when  a  body  occupies  a  new  position  it  leaves 
its  old  position  behind  it,  and  we  have  that  existence 
of  "all  Space  at  an  instant"  which  Professor  Alex- 
ander denies. 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  when  it  comes  to  total 
Space-Time,  which  is  divided  up,  not  in  perspectives, 
that  is  to  say,  in  times  which  stretch  over  other  times 
and  spaces  which  stretch  over  other  spaces,  but  in 
sections  which  take  a  clean  cut  through  Time  and 
Space,  we  indeed  arrive  at  all  Space  at  an  instant, 
or  all  Time  at  a  point. 

Professor  Alexander  denies  that  these  sections 

"represent  what  the  world  of  Space-Time  is  historically  or  at 
any  one  moment.  For  at  any  moment  of  its  real  history  Space  is 
not  all  of  one  date  and  Time  is  not  all  at  one  point."  ^ 

He  says  that  all  Space  at  an  instant  and  all  Time 
at  a  point  are  got  by  "arbitrary  selection  from  the 
infinite  rearrangements  of  instants  among  points." 

I  do  not  understand  this.  I  can  of  course  see  why 
the  clean  cut  at  any  one  instant  should  represent  all 
Space  at  an  instant,  and  the  clean  cut  at  any  one  point 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  81. 


172  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

should  represent  all  Time  at  a  point,  and  that  neither 
should  represent  all  Space-Time,  since  all  Space  is  not 
at  one  point  nor  all  Time  at  one  instant ;  but  it  seems 
to  me  that  for  the  instant,  at  the  instant  all  Space  and 
all  events  occurring  at  the  instant  will  be  truly  and 
"historically"  represented.  That  is  to  say,  the  history 
of  the  instant  will  be  the  history  of  all  events  occurring 
''then,"  the  events  will  be  truly  and  historically 
''there."  True,  this  language  is  misleading  so  far  as 
"history"  implies  a  past  as  well  as  a  present;  in  this 
sense  we  must  not  say  that  history  is  represented. 
But  the  total  fact,  the  whole  coexistent  complex  of  in- 
stantaneous events  is  represented,  and  this  is  all  we 
mean  by  all  Space  at  an  instant  or  through  any  given 
duration. 

Similarly  the  one  point  will  be  truly  and  historically 
one  event  enduring  throughout  all  Time,  and  I  cannot 
conceive  why  a  section  should  be  a  more  "arbitrary" 
selection  than  a  perspective.  On  the  contrary,  when 
we  are  "within  the  region  of  Space-Time  pure  and 
simple,  before  qualitied  events  like  the  fall  of  a  tree 
or  the  birth  of  a  flower,  or  the  existence  of  complex 
percipients  like  plants  or  ourselves,"  the  section  is 
the  only  selection  we  are  justified  in  making,  or  for  the 
matter  of  that,  which  can  well  be  made.  The  perspec- 
tive, on  the  contrary,  must  needs  be  an  affair  of 
"qualitied  events,"  of  events  perceived  from  different 
standpoints  in  the  process  of  becoming,  events  distin- 
guished as  earlier  or  later,  events,  that  is  to  say, 
selected  from  the  context  of  experience.  All  our  per- 
ceptual experience  is  on  this  level  and  of  this  nature, 
but  the  ultimate  analysis  of  Space-Time  is  not  on  the 
level  of  our  perceptual  experience.  And  our  choice  of 
any  particular  section  will  only  be  arbitrary  in  the 
sense  that  one  section  will  be  as  good  for  our  purpose 
as  another.     The  purely  spatial  and  temporal  differ- 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         173 

ence  between  a  section  and  a  perspective  is  that  a 
perspective  involves  a  finite  stretch  of  Space,  an 
extension,  correlated  with  a  finite  stretch  of  Time,  a 
duration.  This  correlation  will  of  course  not  itself  be 
arbitrary,  inasmuch  as  the  place  of  events  in  time 
through  any  given  perspective  will  be  determined 
strictly  by  the  places  and  times  of  preceding  or  simul- 
taneous events  constituting  the  irreversible  process  of 
nature.  But  the  same  thing  will  hold  good  of  the 
order  of  pure  point-instants.  And  our  choice  of  any 
particular  perspective,  or  correlated  chunk  of  Space- 
Time,  will  be  every  bit  as  arbitrary  as  our  choice  of 
a  section. 

And  you  will  not  have  ruled  out  the  existence  of  all 
Space  at  an  instant,  or  of  all  Time  at  a  point.  You 
can  only  say  that  all  qualitied  events  cannot  happen 
at  an  instant,  nor  can  any  one  qualitied  event  continue 
in  the  same  quality  through  all  instants  of  time.  You 
will  not  have  solved  the  antinomies  of  Space  and  Time 
nor  altered  their  essential  character ;  you  will  only  have 
introduced  the  characters  of  other  entities  beside 
Space  and  Time.  On  the  lowest  level  of  qualitied 
events  matter  and  motion  will  themselves  be  'in- 
fected" with  their  contradictions. 

We  have  already  considered  the  antinomies  of 
Space  and  Time  taken  separately.  But  Space-Time 
itself  gives  rise  to  an  antinomy.  And  the  antinomy  of 
Space-Time  is  this: 

One  instant  of  Time  covers  all  the  points  of  Space. 
That  is  to  say,  all  the  points  of  Space  will  be  repeated, 
will  occur  all  over  again  at  each  successive  instant  of 
Time.  Thus  Time,  so  far  from  receiving  continuity 
from  Space  will  poison  all  Space  with  the  successive- 
ness of  repetition.  In  the  same  way,  any  one  point 
covered  by  all  instants  will  be  indistinguishable  in  its 
time  character  from  any  other  point  equally  covered 


174  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

by  all  instants,  and  any  instant  will  be  indistinguishable 
in  its  space  character  from  any  other  instant,  since  all 
instants  cover  all  Space;  so  that,  so  far  from  Time 
discriminating  between  points,  it  only  interferes  to  con- 
fuse them  and  will  be  itself  corrupted  with  the  indeter- 
minateness  of  Space. 

Introduce  motion  into  your  complex  of  point- 
instants,  and  you  set  up  the  old  point-instant  corre- 
spondence with  its  antinomies  of  discontinuity. 

Take  the  total  of  Space-Time,  Space-Time  that  was 
and  is  and  is  to  be,  and  you  will  indeed  have  all  Space 
covering  all  Time,  and  all  Time  covering  all  Space; 
but,  if  this  mutual  covering  is  to  be  conceived  as  a 
complete  fit.  Time  must  lose  its  time  character  of  suc- 
cession, it  will  be  what  Space  is,  an  eternal  ''now"; 
and  Space  must  lose  its  space  character  of  eternal 
presence  and  become  what  Time  is,  succession  for  ever 
and  ever.  And  within  this  total,  at  any  point  or  any 
one  instant,  there  will  be  an  infinite  number  of  points 
at  one  instant  and  an  infinite  number  of  instants  at  one 
point.  That  is  to  say,  at  any  one  point  or  any  one 
instant  you  will  have  parts  unequal  to  each  other  which 
yet  in  the  whole  of  Space-Time  are  equal  to  each  other 
and  to  the  whole.  To  every  other  relation  of  whole 
and  part  the  time  factor  is  indifferent,  but  here  it 
figures  as  itself  a  term  in  the  relation,  an  amphibious 
term  which  stands  now  for  a  whole  covering  all  Space 
and  now  as  a  part  in  the  whole  of  Space-Time.  And 
Space  will  be  equally  amphibious. 

Professor  Alexander  tries,  very  dexterously,  to 
dodge  these  antinomies  by  avoiding  the  complete  fit 
and  setting  up  within  his  system  of  Space-Time  a 
system  of  unequal  dates.  He  has  got  to  show  that 
all  Space  and  all  Time  are  not  contemporaneous  within 
the  total,  and  that  one  instant  is  not  and  cannot  be 
contemporary  with  all  points,  nor  one  point  with  all 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         175 

instants.  In  order  to  do  this,  however,  he  has  to  for- 
sake pure  Space-Time,  and  introduce,  as  it  were  sur- 
reptitiously, ' '  qualitied  events, ' '  of  the  kind  that  inter- 
sect and  overlap,  events  which  in  one  Space-Time  will 
be  of  different  dates ;  for  example,  the  rings  of  a  tree 
which  mark  in  space  its  successive  ages  in  time,  its  past 
thus  overlapping  into  its  present  and  causing  a  redis- 
tribution of  instants  in  space.  Similarly,  the  move- 
ment of  bodies  through  space  will  cause  a  correspond- 
ing redistribution  of  points  in  time.  For  the  body 
which  when  stationary  will  occupy  but  one  point  in 
successive  times  will  now  be  occupying  many  points  in 
succession.  Moreover,  events  have  the  accommodating 
property  of  occupying  each  other's  time,  though  no 
two  of  them  can  occupy  each  other's  space.  This  dove- 
tailing of  events  is  taken  as  constituting  a  continuity 
or  packing  in  Space-Time. 

But  does  it  constitute  a  continuity?  Will  even  the 
carefully  chosen  overlapping  of  events  in  Time  con- 
stitute a  continuity  in  Space-Time? 

Take  two  series  of  unequal  and  overlapping  dates. 
Let  a  series  of  passing  events  A,  C,  E,  Gr,  cover  the 
instants  1,  3,  5,  7,  respectively;  and  a  series  of  passing 
events,  B,  D,  F,  cover  the  intermediate  instants  2,  4,  6, 
respectively.  Each  instant  will  be  duly  and  properly 
covered  by  an  event. 

Now,  if  event  A  is  not  to  be  succeeded  by  event  C 
until  instant  3,  it  will  have  had  to  overlap,  that  is  to 
say,  to  endure  throughout  B's  instant,  2.  And  if  B 
is  not  to  be  succeeded  by  D  until  instant  4,  it  will  have 
to  overlap  C's  instant,  3.  And  the  same  will  hold 
good  of  the  other  events  and  instants.  And  at  first 
sight  it  looks  as  if  this  ensured  continuity. 

But,  though  A  has  endured  throughout  instants  1 
and  2,  and  B  throughout  instants  2  and  3,  and  C 
throughout  instants  3  and  4,  D  throughout  instants 


176  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

4  and  5,  E  throughout  instants  5  and  6,  and  F  through- 
out instants  6  and  7,  yet  each  event  ends  with  its  second 
instant  and  is  succeeded  by  another  event  which  ends 
with  its  second  instant.  Besides,  if  the  instants  are 
to  have  a  definite  end  and  a  definite  beginning — and 
they  must  have  if  definite  dates  are  to  be  assigned  to 
definite  events,  if  events  are  to  be  calculable — then 
there  will  be  a  repetition  or  re-birth  of  A  at  instant  2. 
(You  can  only  avoid  it  by  running  the  instants  to- 
gether, which  in  perceptual  experience  is  precisely 
what  you  do  do.)  And  if  the  instants  divide  events 
into  event-particles,  the  same  will  hold  good  of  the 
event-particles. 

Again,  Professor  Alexander  gets  his  continuity  by 
regarding  Time  as  essentially  Space,  and  Space  as 
essentially  Time.  Space-Time  is  a  more  profound  and 
intimate  affair  than  mere  relation;  it  is  an  affair  of 
identity.  But  does  the  unity  manifestly  conferred  on 
them  by  their  relations  amount  to  identity  of  being? 
Can  it  be  truly  said  that  Space  and  Time  are  one  in 
this  sense? 

When  we  say  that  any  instant  covers  all  space,  this 
does  not  mean  that  the  instant  is  really  stretched  out 
into  Space,  that  it  has  the  same  spatial  extension  as 
space  and  that  ''while"  has  the  meaning  of  ''where," 
only  that  all  points  of  Space  are  present  at  an  instant. 
All  Space  has  this  instantaneous  character.  So  far 
from  Time  giving  continuity  to  Space,  Time,  as  we 
have  seen,  brings  into  Space  its  own  successiveness  and 
discontinuity.  As  it  is  all  Space  that  is  repeated  in 
Time,  there  will  be  no  space  between  repetitions,  that 
is  to  say,  between  instants.  Or  take  Space  filled  with 
matter  in  motion;  here  again  Time  splits  up  Space- 
Time  into  point-instants.  Professor  Alexander  calls 
this  "discriminating"  the  points  in  Space,  as  if  with- 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         177 

out  Time,  or  without  motion  from  point  to  point,  they 
would  not  discriminate  each  other.  But  quite  apart 
from  Time,  Space  is  pure  juxtaposition ;  that  is  to  say, 
points  are  already  discriminated  by  their  positions — 
they  are  positions — without  the  aid  of  Time. 

And  from  Professor  Alexander's  theory  of  change 
as  an  empirical  quality  and  not  a  category  I  think  it 
follows  that  Space-Time  is  not  directly  implicated  in 
change.  I  mean  that  change,  if  qualitative,  can  only 
take  place  at  a  higher  level  than  that  of  pure  Space- 
Time;  it  comes,  with  the  qualitied  events  of  varying 
ages,  too  late  to  help  us. 

Therefore,  I  repeat,  I  cannot  see  how  we  are  to  get 
over  the  difficulty  of  those  successive  re-births  of 
Space  at  each  successive  instant  by  this  simple  device 
of  redistributing  points  among  different  dates.  True, 
redistribution  is  an  empirical  fact.  The  all-Space  of 
the  present  instant  has  not  the  same  configuration  or 
filling  as  the  all-Space  of  the  past  or  of  the  future 
instant,  seeing  that  new  spatial  events  are  arising  all 
the  time  from  instant  to  instant.  There  has  been 
movement,  growth,  appearance,  disappearance,  reap- 
pearance of  forms,  in  a  word,  change.  But  we  must 
not  think  of  change  as  the  movement  of  Space-Time 
itself.  There  is  properly  no  movement  of  Space-Time 
beyond  the  succession  of  its  instants.  The  redistribu- 
tion, therefore,  is  not  a  redistribution  of  point-instants, 
but  a  redistribution  of  events,  or  bodies  in  motion, 
occupying  various  points  at  various  dates,  or  of  qual- 
ities exemplifying  various  ages  of  the  same  substance 
(the  rings  on  Professor  Alexander's  tree).  But  these 
changes  or  redistributions  of  quality  will  have  pre- 
cisely that  empirical  character  which  Space-Time  itself 
has  not.  There  is  no  use  calling  in  an  empirical  quality 
to  help  an  a  priori  reality  in  distress. 


178  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

Redistribution  of  events  (or  qualities),  then,  comes 
too  late  to  save  all  Space  from  the  successiveness  of 
its  repetitions  in  Time. 

You  may  perhaps  say  that  to  ensure  continuity  all 
Time,  past,  present  and  future,  must  be  taken  together 
with  all  Space,  so  that  there  may  be  no  spaceless  out- 
standing Time,  no  timeless  outstanding  Space.  But 
on  the  theory  this  is  impossible.  It  is  only  in  the 
mind,  in  mind's  memoiy  and  anticipation  that  past  and 
future  can  be  taken  together,  and  on  the  theory  Space- 
Time  is  outside  and  independent  of  mind;  it  is  what 
it  is  in  and  by  itself,  without  any  gratuitous  mental 
contributions.  And,  apart  from  the  anticipating  mind, 
future  time  has  not  happened  yet,  and  past  time  has 
happened  and  has  passed.  You  may  say  that  past 
time  at  any  rate  has  happened,  and  it  has  left  the  trail 
of  its  events  on  all  events  here  and  now;  but  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  future  time  cannot  affect  the  present 
otherwise  than  through  the  mind.  Let  alone  that  if  it 
were  not  for  memory,  for  recognition,  there  would  be 
no  trail  of  the  past  for  our  perception,  but  every  ele- 
ment of  every  present  event  would  be  strangely  new. 
But  memory,  so  important  for  perception,  does  not 
touch  the  Space-Time  problem  as  anticipation  does.  On 
the  theory,  the  past  has  happened,  memory  or  no  mem- 
ory ;  equally,  on  the  theory,  the  future,  as  such,  does  not 
exist,  and  as  providing  for  all  Space-Time,  never  will. 
In  this  respect  Time  is  at  a  disadvantage  compared 
with  Space  which  can  be  all  at  an  instant;  so  great  a 
disadvantage  that  on  the  face  of  it  it  is  hard  to  see 
how  Time  and  Space  can  be  taken  together  as  identical. 
There  is  nothing  in  Space  which  corresponds  with  this 
non-present  existence  of  future  Time. 


THE  CEITICAL  PEEPAEATIONS         179 


u 

Further   difficulties    present    themselves    when    we 
consider  the  categories  as  arising  from  Space-Time  The 
only.  goTies 

The  categories  are: 

Identity,  Diversity  and  Existence, 

Universal,  Particular  and  Individual, 

Kelation, 

Order, 

Substance,  Causality,  Reciprocity, 

Quantity  and  Intensity, 

Whole  and  Parts,  Number,  and 

Motion. 

You  will  observe  one  glaring  omission.  It  is  not  a 
printer's  error.  Quality  has  been  left  out  on  purpose. 
Quality,  Professor  Alexander  says,  is  not  a  category. 
And  we  shall  presently  see  the  reasons  for  this  singular 
exclusion. 

All  the  categories  are  said  to  be  ultimately  reducible 
to  terms  of  Space-Time. 

.  .  .  "the  categories  prove  upon  examination  to  be  fundamental 
properties  or  determinations  of  Space-Time  itself,  not  taken  as  a 
whole,  but  in  eveiy  portion  of  it.  They  belong  to  all  existents  be- 
cause, if  our  hypothesis  is  sound,  existents  are  in  the  end,  and  in 
their  simplest  terms,  differentiations  of  Space-Time,  the  complexes 
of  events  generated  within  that  matrix." 

.  .  .  "The  categories  are,  as  it  were,  begotten  by  Time  on  Space." ' 

Identity,  Diversity  and  Existence  come  first,  and  at 
first  sight  they  are  plainly  reducible. 

"Self-identity  of  anything  is  its  occupation  of  a  space-time. 
Diversity  is  the  occupation  of  another  space-time." ' 

"Bare  being  is  .  .  .  simple  occupancy  of  a  space-time," 
and 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  189. 
»The  same,  p.  194. 


180  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

.    .    .  "occupancy  of  a  space-time  is  ipso  facto  exclusion  of  other 
space-times."  * 

This  is  all  very  well  but,  obviously,  it  can  only  be 
true  of  the  being  of  things  in  Space-Time.  However, 
it  is  no  use  pressing  this  point  in  this  connection,  as 
Professor  Alexander  does  not  admit  that  there  are  any 
things  not  in  Space-Time. 

But  he  goes  on.  He  takes  a  big  jump  clean  out  of 
the  category  and  lands  in  qualitied  existence. 

"Not-white  is  the  character  which  excludes  or  is  different  from 
white." 

But  not-white  excludes  white,  not  as  occupying  an- 
other space-time  but  as  occupying  another  class.  It 
may  be  empirically  true  that  a  not-white  thing  cannot 
occupy  the  same  space-time  as  a  white  thing  (or  as  any 
other  spatio-temporal  existent),  but  this  is  not  the 
ground  of  the  exclusion.  The  exclusion  is  from  the 
class  of  whites  and  not  from  their  space-times.  But 
we  must  not  anticipate  the  discussion  of  quality. 

Let  us  pass  to  the  Universal  and  Particular. 

The  problem  of  every  theory  of  universals  is  how 
to  secure  to  individuals  their  individuality,  their  em- 
bodiment of  the  universal,  here  and  now.  Professor 
Alexander  maintains  that  it  is  provided  by  his  doctrine 
of  the  universal  as  a  spatio-temporal  constitutive  plan 
or  habit  which  persists  in  the  individual  as  such.  The 
individual  repeats  the  plan  and  all  repetition  is  of 
Space-Time.    Universals 

"are  habits  of  Space-Time,  and  empirical  universals  like  dog  or 
tree  or  justice  are  possible  because  Space-Time  is  uniform  and 
behaves  therefore  on  plans  which  are  undistorted  by  differences  of 
place  and  time." ' 

"They  may  be  called  patterns  of  configuration  or,  to  use  the  old 
Greek  word,  'forms'  of  Space-Time."* 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  199. 
''The  same,  p.  213. 
■The  same,  pp.  214-215. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         181 

There  will  be  no  highest  universal,  because  there  is 
nothing  higher  than  Space-Time,  and  Space-Time  is 
not  a  universal,  it  is  not  even  a  category ;  it  is  the  stuff 
from  which  universals  and  categories  are  made. 

"Universality  is  therefore  a  category  or  determination  of  Space- 
Time.  Every  finite  possesses  universality  or  identity  of  kind  in 
so  far  as  it  admits  without  distortion  of  repetition  in  Space-Time, 
that  is,  can  itself  undergo  change  of  place  or  time  or  both  without 
alteration,  or  can  be  replaced  by  some  other  finite."* 

In  other  words,  universality  is  a  determination  of 
Space-Time  because  it  is  absolutely  indifferent  to 
Space-Time  and  Space-Time  to  it. 

"Universality  is  .  .  .  begotten  like  the  other  categories  by  Time 
on  Space." ' 

This  because  of  its  bare  repetition,  and  all  the  repe- 
tition in  the  world  will  not  in  itself  give  universality. 
The  universal  implies  the  quality  of  sameness.  It  is, 
indeed,  above  all  and  before  all,  purely  qualitative. 
Even  if  the  universal  could  find  itself  in  Space-Time 
(and  this  is  disputable),  it  would  not  therefore  be  con- 
stituted by  it  or  derivable  from  it  or  reducible  to  it. 
To  say  this  is  to  confuse  it  with  the  succession  of 
particulars,  to  make  it  many ;  whereas  the  universal  is 
the  one  in  the  many. 

Professor  Alexander  sees  very  clearly  the  diflSculty 
of  conceiving  the  relation  of  the  universal  to  its  par- 
ticulars.    He  says: 

"Half  the  diflflcidty,  or  perhaps  all  of  it  disappears  when  once 
it  is  admitted  that  particulars  are  complexes  of  Space-Time  and 
belong  therefore  to  the  same  order  and  are  of  the  same  stuff  as  the 
universals  which  are  plans  of  "Space- Time."  * 

You  would  have  said  that  this  was  precisely  where 
the  diflSculty  would  begin.  Let  alone  that  all  universals 
are  not  plans  of  Space-Time — for  beauty,  truth,  justice 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  214. 
'The  same,  p.  217. 
'The  same,  pp.  220,  221. 


182  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

and  whiteness  are  not  plans  of  space-time ;  and  though 
a  white  Angora  rabbit  is  an  object  in  Space-Time,  the 
universal  of  a  white  Angora  rabbit  is  not  an  object  in 
Space-Time  or  a  plan — let  alone  these  glaring  excep- 
tions, the  natural  effect  of  Space-Time  on  the  universal 
is  rather  to  divide,  break  it  up  into  particulars,  than 
bring  particulars  into  its  unity.  They  can,  I  think, 
only  be  brought  together  as  elements  in  some  conscious- 
ness which  displays  universals  and  particulars  as  of 
the  same  mind  stuff.  A  stuff  that  unites  instead  of 
separating. 

Professor  Alexander's  view  is  inconsistent  with  the 
doctrine  of  the  *' concrete  universal"  which  he  criti- 
cises severely.  The  concrete  universal  makes  for  an 
ultimate  individual  or  universe, 

"related  to  its  particulars  as  a  thing  to  its  predicates."  .  .  .  "It 
is  not  a  law  but  a  system."  .  .  .  "If  universals  (on  the  discovery 
of  which  all  science  turns)  are  really  universes  and  not  merely  laws, 
there  is  in  the  end  only  one  individual  or  universe  which  is  self- 
existent  ;  the  minor  universes  are  shadows."  ^ 

He  calls  this  absolute  universal 

"the  devouring  maw  which  swallows  all  empirical  things." 

Swallows,  that  is  to  say,  their  individuality — as  if 
the  individuality  of  empirical  things  would  thus  be  put 
off  and  off,  until  the  ultimate  universal  was  reached, 
as  if  individuality  were  never  attained  here  and  now. 

But  if  the  idealist  is  right  even  the  ultimate  uni- 
versal is  attained  here  and  now.  If  Professor  Alex- 
ander is  right,  and  universals  are  '* merely  laws,"  they 
will  be  regulative,  not  constitutive  of  things.  They  will 
not  have  come  down  into  the  world  of  things  to  saturate 
them  with  quality.  They  will  not  ''have  hands  and 
feet."  And,  as  we  have  seen,  if  the  ''plan"  be  purely 
spatio-temporal  it  will  not  account  for  those  universals 
of  qualities  which  are  not  of  Space-Time  although  cor- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  236. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         183 

related  with  it,  what  Professor  Alexander  calls  ^'dis- 
guises of  qualities  higher  than  mere  motion.'^ 

These  embarrassments  thicken  when  we  come  to  the 
category  of  Relation. 

"All  existents  are  in  relation  because  events  or  groups  of  them 
are  connected  within  Space-Time."  * 

Space-Time  is  then  the  Mother-Father  of  all  rela- 
tions, and  all  relations  follow  the  type  of  relations  in 
Space-Time. 

"All  relation  is  reducible  to  spatio-temporal  terms."  * 

Now,  since  it  has  been  already  laid  down  that  all 
relations  of  space  and  time  are  spaces  and  times,  it 
follows  that  all  relations  of  entities,  however  "qual- 
itied,"  will  be  spaces  and  times.  There  is  a  certain 
frightful  bleakness  about  this  statement  as  it  stands, 
and  I  gather  that  Professor  Alexander  shrinks  from 
the  extreme  consequences  of  his  theory. 

"Not  all  relations  of  existents  are  in  their  immediate  character 
or  quality  spatio-temporal;  but  if  our  hypothesis  is  sound  they  are 
always  spatio-temporal  in  their  simplest  expression."  * 

They  are,  that  is  to  say,  reducible. 

"Since  qualities  are,  we  assume,  correlated  with  spatio-temporal 
processes,  the  relations,  however  otherwise  represented  summarily  or 
compendiously  by  their  qualities,  are  in  the  end  spatio-temporal.  .  .  . 
They  are  at  least  reducibly  without  residue  to  such  relations,  which 
are  themselves  configurations  of  Space- Time."  * 

Let  us  try  this  operation  of  ** reducing"  on  existents 
which  inconsiderately  present  themselves  as  ''dis- 
guises ' '  very  far  from  spatio-temporal.  We  shall  have 
to  abstract  from  them  all  those  qualities  of  their  ob- 
stinate complexity  which  are  not  reducible.  From  an 
individual  man  we  must  abstract  more  than  the  colour 
and  texture  of  his  skin,  hair  and  eyes  and  the  sound  of 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  238. 

^  The  same. 

'  The  same. 

*The  same,  p.  246. 


184  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

his  voice.  You  may  say  that  these  qualities  are  re- 
ducible since  they  can  be  correlated  with  characters  of 
space-time,  since  colour  may  be  said  to  be  extended  in 
space-time  and  sound  to  fill  space-time,  and  travel 
through  it.  But  even  when  we  have  admitted  them 
to  be  spatio-temporal  in  a  vicarious  and  derivative  way, 
they  are  only  partially  reducible;  there  is  still  a 
''residue,"  that  definite  something  which  we  call  qual- 
ity which  distinguishes  blue  eyes  from  black,  and  brown 
hair  from  red,  and  a  voice  of  one  pitch  and  accent  from 
a  voice  of  another  pitch  and  accent.  These  distinctions 
have  their  spatio-temporal  correlates:  wave-lengths 
and  rates  of  vibration;  but  wave-lengths  and  rates  of 
vibration  are  not  black  or  blue,  loud,  or  soft  and  insinu- 
ating. And  we  have  further  to  abstract  qualities  which 
have  no  spatial  character  at  all,  and  no  temporal  char- 
acter but  that  of  bare  existence  or  continuation  in  time. 
All  the  invisible,  intangible  things:  psychic  disposi- 
tions, ways  of  feeling  and  of  thinking ;  play  of  motives, 
acts  of  will,  the  whole  fabric  of  a  man's  consciousness 
have  got  to  go.  You  must  abstract  them  all  from  their 
spatio-temporal  correlates;  and,  though  the  associa- 
tion may  he  constadt,  there  is  no  sense  in  which  you 
can  derive  consciousness  from  or  reduce  it  to  these. 
Correlating  is  not  reducing. 

If  the  result  of  this  experiment  is  not  sufficiently 
convincing,  try  it  on  Deity. 

Observe  that,  if  Professor  Alexander's  theory  were 
sound,  what  gives  character  and  distinction,  say,  to  a 
fit  of  temper  would  be  the  space-time  in  which  it 
happens  to  occur. 

Again : 

"the  relation  of  particulars  to  one  another  under  or  by  their 
universal  is  that  one  particular  may  be  substituted  for  another." 
.  .  .  "Things  of  the  same  sort  are  in  the  first  place  numerically  dif- 
ferent and  exclude  each  other  in  space-time."  * 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  247. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         185 

The  exclusions  of  numerical  identity  are  thus  purely 
quantitative.  The  space-time  relation  does  not  account 
for  or  describe  the  qualitative  difference  in  thmgs 
where  they  are  different. 

And  what  is  to  be  said  of  the  relation  of  "likeness"? 
This  is  purely  qualitative.  It  is  not  altogether  an 
affair  of  imperfect  substitution.  The  exclusion  of  like 
things  from  the  same  Space-Time  is  not  by  virtue  of 
their  likeness,  nor  is  their  likeness  (or  unlikeness),  as 
such,   reducible   to    any    spatio-temporal   relation    or 

quality. 
And  again  we  have  the  doctrine  of  external  relations. 

"  relation  from  the  nature  of  the  case,  as  being  the  situation 

which  unites  things,  is  outside  them  spatially  (or  rather  spatio-tem- 
porally)."' 

Surely  only  if  the  relation  is  a  purely  and  directly 
spatio-temporal  one? 

And  here  there  emerges  a  very  flourishing  contra- 
diction. 

Relations  in  space  and  time  are  themselves  spaces 
and  times.  Then  space  and  time  can  be  relations.  But 
they  are  expressly  stated  not  to  be  relations  between 
bodies,  that  is  to  say,  between  events,  as  on  Professor 
Whitehead's  theoiy,  but  only  between  spaces  and 
times.  How  then  are  bodies  related  in  space  and  time? 
For  they  have  spatial  and  temporal  relations.  Bodies 
are  said  to  be  bits  of  Space-Time,  crystals  in  the 
matrix;  Time  is  their  motion.  The  terms  of  spatial 
and  temporal  relations,  then,  are  spaces  and  times; 
and  the  relations  are  spaces  and  times,  too.  How  then 
do  we  distinguish  between  the  terms  and  the  relations? 
As  between  categorial  and  non-categorial  entities? 

Now,  relations  are  categorial,  and  Space-Time,  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  says,  is  not ;  it  is  the  source  of  the 
categories.    But  the  relations  are  what  the  terms  are, 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  p.  250. 


186  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

spaces  and  times ;  and  the  terms  are  what  the  relations 
are,  bits  of  Space-Time.  Therefore  both  terms  and 
relations  will  be  categorial  and  non-categorial,  which 
is  a  fine  contradiction. 

You  may  perhaps  say  they  are  distinguished  by  their 
empirical  qualities.  But  empirical  quality  ' '  emerges ' ' 
from  Space-Time  and  its  relations;  it  is  both  tem- 
porally and  logically  speaking  outside  the  purely 
spatio-temporal  relations  we  are  discussing;  it  is  a 
later  birth,  and  its  birth  comes  too  late  to  help  us  to 
the  distinction  we  require. 

Practically,  in  perception  we  do  distinguish  events 
both  by  their  relations  and  their  qualities.  The  point 
of  the  present  objection  is  that,  if  we  stand  by  Profes- 
sor Alexander's  definitions,  we  shall  have  no  logical 
grounds  for  distinguishing  between  relations  in  space- 
time  and  their  terms.  The  point  has  no  practical  or 
scientific  value;  still,  it  is  worth  considering.  There 
should  be  no  logical  lapses  in  a  sound  metaphysical 
view  of  Space-Time. 

There  is  no  great  hardship  in  admitting  that  Order 

"depends  ultimately  in  every  case  on  spatio-temporal  between- 
ness." 

Thus  even  the  moral  order,  so  far  as  it  depends  on 
betweenness,  degrees  of  goodness,  badness  and  so  on, 
is  derived  from  Space-Time.  But  this  is  not  saying 
that  moral  qualities  are  so  derived. 

The  category  of  Substance  is  rather  more  important. 
It  is  extremely  important.  On  the  theory,  substance, 
like  the  rest,  can  only  be  a  configuration  of  Space-Time, 
simple  or  complex.     Unity  of  qualities 

"is  supplied  by  the  Space  (that  is  the  space-time)  within  which 
the  qualities  are  disposed.  Each  quality  inheres  in  the  substance 
because  it  is  included  in  the  space  and  unifies  the  substance."  * 

Substantial  identity  is  that  which  endures  through- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  274. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         187 

out  Space-Time.  Since,  then,  "Personal  identity  is  a 
special  instance  of  substantial  identity, ' '  the  person  or 
mind  must  be  regarded  as  extended  in  space  as  well 
as  in  time.  If  we  insist  that  the  mind  is  only  in  time 
and  not  in  space  we  divide  time  and  space  and  are 
back  again  in  the  antinomies  of  their  division. 

And  (because  the  motions  which  correspond  to  qual- 
ities do  not  interpenetrate) :  "The  qualities  of  a  sub- 
stance do  not  interpenetrate." 

Thus  they  will  be  broken  up  into  parts  corresponding 
with  their  motions.  Even  if  you  say  that  their  motions 
are  continuous,  because  Space-Time  is  continuous,  you 
will  still  have  the  special  discreteness  of  compounds  on 
your  hands.  Professor  Alexander  says  they  do  not 
matter. 

"We  need  take  no  account  of  the  purely  empirical  fact  that  within 
a  substance  which  is  compound  there  may  be  empty  spaces  or  pores 
not  included  in  the  substance  itself."  ^ 

The  idea  seems  to  be  that  if  you  have  once  called  a 
thing  a  purely  empirical  fact  it  will  cease  to  worry  you. 
But  surely  it  is  glaringly  evident  that,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  continuity,  the  discreteness  of  substance 
matters  very  much  indeed.  At  this  rate  the  theory  of 
Quanta  will  not  matter.  But  it  is  supposed  that  the 
peculiar  continuity  of  pure  Space-Time  is  sufficient  to 
tide  the  compounds  over  the  gaps  in  their  substance, 
because  Space-Time  is  Substance. 

Causality  is  easily  defined  as 

"the  spatio-temporal  continuity  of  one  substance  with  another." 
...  "A  cause  is  the  motion  of  a  substance,  or  a  substance  in  re- 
spect of  its  motion."  .  ,  .  "Causation  is  .  .  .  the  continuity  of 
existents  within  continuous  Space-Time  as  subsisting  between  sub- 
stances, which  are  themselves  motions  or  groups  of  motions." ' 

It  will  at  once  be  admitted  that  Causality  is  pre- 
eminently a  category  where,  if  anywhere,  the  spatio- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  277. 
'The  same,  pp.  281,  284. 


188  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

temporal  theory  might  be  expected  to  justify  itself. 
Even  with  such  a  reservation  as  denying  that  Time  can 
in  any  strict  sense  be  said  to  be  a  cause,  we  may  wel- 
come its  immense  simplifications.  It  rules  out  for  ever 
''the  notion  of  power  and  necessity."  But  for  those 
who  obstinately  deny  the  continuity  of  Space-Time, 
causality,  if  merely  spatio-temporal,  will  be  "infected 
with  time's  taint  of  relative  unreality." 
"There  is," 

Professor  Alexander  says  further, 

"no  causal  relation  between  the  infinite  whole  and  any  one  of  its 
parts.  There  is  only  such  relation  between  one  part  and  another. 
The  whole  system  of  things  does  not  descend  into  the  arena  and  eon- 
tend  with  one  of  its  creatures." ' 

In  this  case  causality  will  be  very  powerfully  tainted, 
broken  up  for  ever  into  the  sequences  of  event-particles. 
We  are  driven  inevitably  from  this  notion  of  cause  to 
that  higher  concept  of  the  ground  which  Professor 
Alexander  repudiates.  This  concept  does  not,  I  think, 
mean  that  the  whole  system  of  things  breaks  loose  like 
a  lunatic  and  ' '  descends  into  the  arena  to  contend  with 
one  of  its  creatures."  Nothing  could  well  be  farther 
from  it  than  this  image  of  descending  and  contending. 
It  means,  not  that  the  whole  universe  has  a  being  apart 
from  its  creatures,  but  that  each  creature  is  united 
with  every  other  creature  in  the  universe  as  their  com- 
mon ground.  This  can  well  be  if  in  the  whole  universe 
there  is  but  one  stuff  of  all  creatures.  It  could  have 
well  been  on  the  assumption  that  Space-Time  is  that 
stuff,  if  Space-Time  really  provided  the  necessary  con- 
tinuity, and  was  really  pregnant  from  the  first  with 
life,  mind  and  Deity. 

Causality  brings  us  to  Reciprocity.  And  reciprocity 
implies  simultaneity.  But  on  Professor  Alexander's 
view 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  288. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         189 

"simultaneity  is  ...  an  outcome  of  the  successive  character  of 
Space-Time.  ...  A  Space-Time  which  is  occupied  by  Time  at 
various  stages  of  the  intrinsic  succession  of  Time  allows  both  for  the 
persistence  of  Space  and  for  its  complete  occupation  at  any  one 
moment."  * 

And  again  it  must  be  urged  that  Space  at  an  instant 
would  be  completely  occupied  by  all  events  present  at 
that  instant,  and  Space  at  the  next  instant  by  all  the 
events  then  present,  though  they  would  not  all  be  the 
same  events.  But  at  any  instant,  whatever  the  events 
may  be,  it  is  still  all  Space  at  an  instant. 

Quantity  and  Intensity  are  reducible  without  diffi- 
culty to  Space-Time. 

"Extensive  quantity  is  the  occupation  of  any  space  by  its  time 
.  .  .  or  .  .  .  the  occupation  of  any  time  by  its  space.  Space  as  so 
occupied  is  an  extension.  Time  as  so  occupied  is  a  duration."  .  .  . 
"Quantity  is  thus  equivalent  to  the  bare  fact  that  Space  is  swept 
out  in  Time,  or  that  Time  is  occupation  of  Space. 

"Intensity  or  intensive  quantity,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  occur- 
rence of  various  spaces  in  the  same  time,  or  .  .  .  the  occupation  of 
the  same  space  by  different  times.  The  simplest  case  is  the  velocity 
of  a  simple  motion  .  .  .  intensive  quantity  is  the  fact  that  Time 
may  be  filled  by  Space  and  Space  by  Time  unequally." ' 

Intensities  of  sensation,  on  the  theory,  will  be  only 
particular  instances  of  these  spatio-temporal  relations. 

The  derivation  of  Whole  and  Parts  follows  inevit- 
ably. 

"Time  disintegrates  Space  directly  by  distinguishing  it  into  suc- 
cessive spaces;  Space  disintegrates  Time  indirectly  by  making  it 
a  whole  of  times,  without  which  whole  there  would  be  no  separate 
times  either." 

.  .  .  "There  would  be  no  aggregate  wholes  composed  of  individuals 
were  it  not  for  the  connecting  Space-Time."  .  .  .  "The  intrinsic 
resolution  of  Space-Time  through  the  internal  relation  of  Space  and 
Time  is  the  basis  of  all  distinction  of  parts,  no  matter  how  loosely 
the  whole  is  united  of  them."  * 

The  only  objection  that  the  idealist  can  make  here 
is  that  logical  wholes  are  not  spatio-temporal. 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  302, 
*  The  same,  p.  306. 
"The  same,  pp.  312,  313. 


190  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

Motion,  the  last  and  greatest  category  for  Space- 
Time,  is  obviously  spatio-temporal.  What  is  not  so 
obvious  is  that  motion  is  a  category,  since  motion  is 
Space-Time  and  Space-Time  is  not  a  category.  It 
seems  to  bear  an  amphibious  character,  half  categorial, 
half  empirical. 

"But  in  fact,  though  every  empirical  existent  is  some  sort  of 
motion  or  other,  it  is  the  sort  of  motion  that  it  is  that  makes  it 
empirical.  .  .  .  That  it  is  a  motion  or  a  space  or  a  time  is  a  priori 
or  non-empirical;  and  in  fact  the  category  of  motion  is  but  an- 
other expression  of  the  fact  that  every  existent  is  a  piece  of  Space- 
Time."  ' 

"Motion  is  thus  the  border-line  between  the  categorial  and  the 
empirical  region." ' 

".  .  .in  motion  the  full  tale  of  the  fundamental  determination 
of  Space-Time  is  told  and  motion  is  consequently  the  totality  of 
what  can  be  affirmed  of  every  Space-Time."  * 

And  point-instants  also  have  this  amphibious  char- 
acter. 

"They  are  empirical,  like  the  infinites,  for  each  point-instant  has 
its  own  individual  character,  is  a  'this'.  Yet  since  they  are  the  ele- 
ments of  Space-Time  which  is  the  source  of  all  categories,  they 
illustrate  that  intimate  connection  of  the  non-empirical  and  the  em- 
pirical which.  .  .  .  But  they  cannot  be  treated  as  finites,  regarded 
as  having  a  separate  existence  like  ordinary  finites.  .  .  .  Point- 
instants  are  real  but  their  separation  is  conceptual." 

And  here  Professor  Alexander  makes  a  tremendous 
admission. 

"Real  they  are,  but  if  the  apparent  contradiction  may  be  par- 
doned, they  are  ideal  realities."  * 

That  is  to  say,  the  very  elements  of  Space-Time  are 
ideal,  the  matrix  from  which  matter  crystallises  is 
ideal.     The  ideal  is  the  ultimate  reality. 

Professor  Alexander  is  aware  that  the  admission  is 
tremendous.  '^I  do  not  attempt,"  he  says,  ''to  mini- 
mise the  difficulties  of  this  statement."    It  is  enough 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  320. 
'The  same,  p.  322. 
"The  same,  p.  323. 
*The  same,  p.  325. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         191 

for  him  that  these  ideal  entities  can  be  swept  into  the 
universal  Space-Time.  We  cannot  expect  him  to  adopt 
the  conclusion,  inevitable  for  idealism,  that  if  the  very 
elements  of  Space-Time  are  ideal,  Space-Time  is  itself 
an  ideal  construction  and  must  be  swept  into^  the  uni- 
versal consciousness.  For  ideas,  on  the  realist  hypo- 
thesis, are  non-mental.  And  when  we  come  to  mental 
Space-Time  it  cannot  be  said  to  give  a  handle  to 
idealism  either. 

iii 

Meanwhile  the  consideration  of  motion  has  raised 
again  the  more  acute  problem  of  quality.  Quality 

"There  is  a  motion-quality  as  there  is  redness  or  sweetness.  .  .  . 
But  while  all  other,  empirical,  qualities  are  correlated  with  mo- 
tions, the  'quality'  motion  is  purely  spatio-temporal,  that  of  being 
a  space-time."  * 

And  presently  we  come  to  a  hard  saying.  ' '  Quality 
is  not  a  category."  It  is  not  a  category  because  it  is 
not  pervasive  as  the  categories  are ;  and  it  is  not  uni- 
versal, it  is  not  a  plan, 

"It  may  be  answered  that  everything  possesses  some  quality  or 
other,  and  therefore  quality  is  categorial;  everything  is  a  complex 
of  Space-Time  and  to  complexity  corresponds  quality,  upon  our 
own  showing." 

But  no. 

"Complexity  in  Space-Time  makes  everything  a  complex,  but  not 
a  quality.  ...  The  quality  of  the  colour  varies  with  the  wave-length 
of  the  vibration.  Now  every  colour  has  some  wave-length  or  other. 
...  But  length  of  wave  is  a  quantity  and  not  a  quality  .  .  .  length 
of  wave  as  such  has  no  colour  as  such.  .  .  ."  ' 

Could  there  be  a  plainer  statement  of  the  inability  of 
Space-Time  to  account  for  quality?  A  franker  con- 
fession of  the  break-down  of  the  Space-Time  theory 
here?  The  murder  is  out.  Quality  is  not  reducible 
without  residue  to  spatio-temporal  terms  and  relations. 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  321. 
»The  same,  p.  327. 


192  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

It  is  not  quantitative.  Its  correlations  with  quantity- 
are  themselves  mysterious  and  irreducible.  The  most 
you  can  say  is  that  quality  belongs  to  things  which  are 
in  Space-Time.  It  is  miraculously  and  magically 
''there."  But  on  Professor  Alexander's  own  showing 
it  will  not  fit  into  his  spatio-temporal  scheme. 

And  that  is  why  it  is  denied  its  age-long  status  as  a 
category.  If  it  were  a  category  it  would  make  its 
occult  and  alien  presence  felt  pervasively.  This  trou- 
ble Professor  Alexander  hopes  to  avoid  by  calling 
quality  "empirical."  This  camouflages  in  a  sense  its 
obstinate  recalcitrance.  It  is  only  empirical,  poor 
thing,  and  knows  no  better.  And  still  the  problem 
remains  of  accounting  for  its  queerness  in  a  purely 
spatio-temporal  universe.  Quality  is  an  eccentricity; 
or  rather,  since  there  is  no  universal  quality,  qualities 
are  eccentricities,  strange  new  crystallisations  in  the 
matrix.  They  belong  but  they  are  not  reducible  to 
Space-Time  nor  derivable  from  it.  They  have,  all  of 
them,  just  mysteriously  and  miraculously  ''emerged." 

The  problem  becomes  still  more  acute  when  we  get 
to  Change.  Here  the  only  happy  line  for  Professor 
Alexander  to  take  would  have  been  to  say  that  all 
change  is  motion  and  have  done  with  it.  But  he  can- 
not do  this.  For  though  all  motion  is  change,  all 
change  is  not  motion. 

"Primarily  change  is  change  of  quality  and  quality  is  always 
empirical."  * 

And  yet  it  is  motion. 

"Remembering  that  all  existences,  no  matter  what  qualities  they 
possess,  are  in  the  end  complexes  of  motion,  we  may  describe  change 
as  a  species  of  motion  which  replaces  one  set  of  motions  by  an- 
other; it  is  grounded  in  motion  and  may  be  described  as  a  motion 
from  one  motion  to  another.  The  nature  of  the  transitional  motion 
may  be  different  in  different  eases.  Thus  one  thought  may  lead  on 
to  another  and  the  motion  is  experienced  as  a  direct  transition  be- 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  328. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         193 

tween  the  two  thoughts.  ...  In  every  case  we  have  not  a  mere 
difference  but  a  motion  which  ends  in  the  substitution  of  one  em- 
pirical condition  for  another. 

Change  is  then  not  categorial  but  empirical."  * 

Thus  the  qualitative  character  of  change  breaks 
through.  Something  changes ;  and  its  change  is  some- 
thing more  indirect  and  more  complex  than  its  move- 
ment. So  that  where  change  is  movement,  within  the 
movement  itself  you  have  this  mysterious  and  irre- 
ducible thing,  quality. 

We  have  yet  to  learn  all  the  things  which  Space-Time 
is  not. 

Clearly  it  is  not  an  existent.  ' '  Existence  belongs  to 
that  which  occupies  a  Space-Time";  and  there  is  no 
Space-Time  outside  Space-Time  which  it  could  occupy. 

When  we  ask  if  Space-Time  is  not  a  whole,  and  a  one 
that  includes  many,  and  a  substance,  the  answer  is  No. 

** Space-Time  is  not  a  whole  of  parts."  Superfici- 
ally, this  again  is  a  hard  saying,  for  Space-Time  was 
distinctly  stated  to  be  the  totality  of  all  existents.  It 
looks  then  as  if  existents  within  Space-Time  were  not 
its  parts.  But  I  think  this  is  not  Professor  Alexander's 
meaning.  Space-Time  has  parts.  The  parts  of  Space 
are  spaces  and  the  parts  of  Time  are  times ;  but  Space- 
Time  is  not  the  whole  of  them.     For  this  reason : 

"Space-Time  breaks  up  into  parts  and  wholes  of  them  as  it  lives 
and  moves.  ...  If  Space-Time  were  such  a  whole  it  would  be 
given  all  at  once.  But  being  Time,  (or  indeed  Space  for  that  mat- 
ter) it  is  not  .  .  .  given  altogether.  To  suppose  so  is  to  ignore  the 
reality  of  Time,  to  fail  to  take  Time  seriously."  * 

Time  drives  Space-Time  forward  for  ever  to  the  re- 
distribution of  point-instants. 

"For  in  the  redistribution  of  dates  among  places,  new  existents 
are  generated  within  the  one  Space-Time."* 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  pp.  328,  329. 
=  The  same,  p.  339. 
'  The  same. 


194  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

I  think  an  objection  may  be  made  to  this  argument. 
The  point-instants  are  the  parts  of  Space-Time.  All 
that  Time  does  is  to  redistribute  them ;  it  does  not  add 
more  point-instants  to  the  sum  total.  There  is  no  sum 
total  of  point-instants  if  their  number  is  infinite.  Thus 
it  is  because  its  parts  are  infinite,  and  not  because  Time 
redistributes  them  that  Space-Time  is  not  a  whole. 

Again,  to  come  to  greater  clarities,  it  is  evident  that 
Space-Time  is  not  a  substance,  in  spite  of  the  previous 
definition  of  substance  as  Space-Time. 

"For  substance  is  an  existent  configuration  of  space  in  so  far 
as  it  is  the  theatre  of  Time;  it  is  a  space  with  definite  contour  oc- 
cupied by  time,  that  is,  a  space  enduring  in  time.  But  infinite  Space 
has  no  contour  and  is  thus  no  substance."  ^ 

And  so  of  unity: 

"In  like  manner  Space-Time  is  in  no  case  a  unity  of  many  things ; 
it  is  not  a  one." 

To  be  a  unity.  Professor  Alexander  says,  would  im- 
ply that  it  "can  descend  into  the  field  of  number,  and 
be  merely  an  individual,  and  be  compared  as  one  with 
two  or  three."  But  this  is  not  what  we  mean  by  a 
unity.     Truly, 

"The  universe  is  neither  one  in  this  sense  nor  many  ...  it  can 
only  be  described  not  as  one  and  still  less  as  one,  but  as  the  one 
.  .  .  it  is  not  so  much  an  individual  or  a  singular  as  the  one  and 
only  matrix  of  generation,  to  which  no  rival  is  possible  because  all 
rivalry  is  fashioned  within  the  same  matrix."  * 

And  surely  this  is  precisely  what  we  mean  by  a 
unity! 

And  the  question  is :  Can  Space-Time,  with  its  anti- 
nomies, with  its  inimical  attitude  to  quality,  with  the 
marks  of  Time's  "restlessness"  upon  it,  be  truly  said 
to  be  such  a  unity? 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  pp.  339,  340. 
"The  same,  p.  339. 


THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         195 


IV 

Professor  Alexander  finds  the  ''clue'^  to  the  perplex- 
ing problem  of  quality  in  mind.  Not  in  the  sense  that  Con- 
mind  is  in  any  way  the  creator  of  quahty,  that  it  brings  ^^ 
quality  into  the  outside  world.  In  fact,  it  is  not  easy 
to  see,  on  Professor  Alexander's  view  of  the  relation 
of  mind  to  its  object,  how,  beyond  the  quality  of  not 
being  an  object,  there  can  be  any  distinctive  quality  in 
mind. 

For  the  relation  of  mind  to  its  object  is  one  of  pure 
''compresence."  It  is  together  with  its  object  as  two 
finites  in  Space-Time.  Its  consciousness  of  its  object 
Professor  Alexander  calls  "contemplation";  its  con- 
sciousness of  itself  he  calls  "enjoyment."  Mind  does 
not  contemplate  itself,  it  cannot  be  an  object  to  itself; 
and  it  is  a  little  difficult  to  understand  precisely  what 
mental  act  or  state  Professor  Alexander  means  by  ' '  en- 
joyment." It  is  evidently  some  state  of  awareness; 
perhaps  "realisation"  comes  nearest  to  it.  We  can  say 
that  the  mind  realises  itself  and  its  togetherness  with 
its  object.  Enjoyment  is  its  realisation  of  its  com- 
presence.     It  would  seem  to  be  a  unique  relation. 

But  compresence,  we  are  to  understand,  is  not  a 
unique  relation.  Any  two  finites  connected  together 
in  Space-Time  are  said  to  be  compresent  with  one 
another. 

"Let  A  be  a  mind  and  B  another  finite  distinct  from  that  mind 
and  of  a  lower  order.  Then  A's  compresence  with  B  means  that  A 
is  conscious  of  B.  Cognition,  then,  instead  of  being  a  unique  rela- 
tion, is  nothing  but  an  instance  of  the  simplest  and  most  universal 
of  all  relations."  * 

"Now  such  a  relation  as  exists  in  sensing  a  sensum  is  strictly 
comparable  with  the  relation  of  two  compresent  physical  finites, 
like  the  floor  and  the  table,  which  are  in  causal  relation."  * 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  82. 
^The  same,  p.  83. 


196  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

"Thus  the  relation  of  the  mind  to  its  object  b  the  table  is  pre- 
cisely of  the  same  order  as  that  between  the  floor  and  the  table. 
Only,"' 

Professor  Alexander  adds  naively,  "the  floor  is  not 
conscious. ' ' 

To  be  sure  he  gives  a  sort  of  awareness  to  the  floor. 

"The  material  floor  is  assured  of  the  materiality  of  the  table." 

But,  if  we  were  to  take  this  view  of  consciousness 
seriously,  the  mind  would  have  no  more  consciousness 
than  the  floor.  And  Professor  Alexander  tells  us  that 
to  a  higher  order  of  intelligence,  as  might  be  an 
"angel"  or  "an  infinite  God," 

"there  would  be  no  doubt  that  the  relation  of  mind  to  its  object 
is  only  an  example  of  the  relation  of  any  other  finite  to  a  second 
finite." ' 

Only  as  Professor  Alexander  himself  is  not  an  angel 
nor  an  infinite  Grod,  but  only  perhaps  the  first  of  living 
philosophers,  you  can  but  wonder  how  he  knows  it. 

Self  consistency  cannot  be  expected  of  such  a  theory. 
Mind  is  said  to  be  "a  new  thing"  that  emerges  when 
conditions  are  favourable.  But  to  call  the  relation  of 
consciousness  to  its  object  compresence  is  to  take  from 
mind  all  its  newness,  and  from  consciousness  all  that 
distinguishes  it  from  non-consciousness.  There  is  no 
difference  at  this  rate  between  a  mind  and  a  table  or 
a  chair.  You  would  have  thought  that  consciousness 
was  what  made  the  difference,  and  that  the  difference 
could  not  be  defined  as  mere  compresence.  Perhaps  it 
cannot  be  defined  at  all.  If  this  is  so,  why  not  say 
plainly  that  it  is  a  unique  and  indefinable  relation? 

But  Professor  Alexander  will  not  have  it  so ;  and  we 
are  very  far  from  discovering  the  distinctive  quality 
of  mind. 

Yet  when  he  is  faced  with  Mr.  E.  B.  Holt's  "concept 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  103. 
"  The  same,  p.  105. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         197 

of  consciousness,"  that  beautifully  innocent  and  simple 
concept  of  neural  responses  which  are  not  acts  of  con- 
sciousness, a  concept  which  turns  consciousness  itself 
out  of  doors  among  its  objects,  he  finds  something  lack- 
ing in  it,  and  no  wonder, 

"The  doctrine  fails  to  account  for  a  vital  feature  in  the  cognitive 
situation,  as  we  experience  it,  namely,  that  in  being  aware  of  the 
fire,  the  fire  is  before  me,  or  it  is  I  who  see  it,  or  it  is  in  a  sense  my 
fire." ' 

Professor  Alexander  points  out  that,  on  Mr.  Holt's 
theory, 

"Consciousness  then  becomes  the  name  of  any  field  of  objects  to 
which  anything  whatever  corresponds  specifically.  It  becomes  a 
mere  name  for  compresence."  * 

Which  is  what  Professor  Alexander  said  it  was !  If 
we  are  to  introduce  self-consciousness  into  the  situa- 
tion, we  shall  be  nearer  the  truth  of  it,  but  we  can 
no  longer  say  that  consciousness  is  not  a  unique 
relation. 

But  I  am  anticipating. 

Professor  Alexander  sets  out  by  identifying  mind 
with  its  neural  basis. 

"That  which  as  experienced  from  the  inside  or  enjoyed  is  a 
conscious  process,  is  as  experienced  from  the  outside  or  contemplated 
a  neural  one."  * 

"A  neural  process  of  a  certain  level  of  development  possesses  the 
quality  of  consciousness  and  is  thereby  a  mental  process,  and  alter- 
nately a  mental  process  is  also  a  vital  one  of  a  certain  order."  * 

"But  while  mental  process  is  also  neural,  it  is-  not  merely  neural, 
and  therefore  also  not  merely  vital." ' 

.  .  .  "What  determines  the  difference  of  the  psychical  from  the 
merely  physiological  process  is  its  locality  in  the  nervous  system." 

.  .  .  "We  may  safely  regard  locality  of  the  mental  process  as  what 
chiefly  makes  it  mental  as  distinct  from  merely  neural,  or  what  dis- 
tinguishes the  different  mental  processes  from  one  another.   .    .    . 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  111. 
'The  same,  p.  113. 
'  The  same,  p.  5. 
*  The  same,  pp.  5,  6. 
'  The  same,  p.  6. 


198  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

There  is  not,  or  not  necessarily,  to  each  neurosis  a  corresponding 
psychosis.  The  equivalent  proposition  is  that  -while  all  psychoses 
are  neuroses,  the  psychoses  imply  the  emergence  of  a  new  feature, 
that  of  mind.  It  would  follow  that  mental  process  may  be  ex- 
pressible completely  in  physioloerical  terms  but  is  not  merely  physio- 
logical but  also  mental."^ 

And  yet 

.  .  .  "there  are  not  two  processes,  one  neural,  the  other  mental,  but 
one." ' 

Again : 

.  .  .  "once  we  recognise  that  mental  processes  have  no  character, 
beyond  the  quality  of  being  mental,  other  than  such  as  all  processes 
present,  intensity  or  locality  or  velocity  or  the  like,  that  is  to  say, 
empirical  forms  of  categorial  character,  all  reason  is  removed  for 
supposing  the  mental  process  to  be  a  different  existent  from  the 
neural  one."* 

And  yet 
"Mental  process  is  therefore  something  new,  a  fresh  creation."  * 

We  may  ask  how  and  if  mental  process  is  **  com- 
pletely expressible  in  physiological  terms"  it  is  not 
''merely  physiological  but  also  mental";  and  how 
mind,  if  it  is  identical  with  nenral  process,  can  be  a 
new  creation?  Professor  Alexander  seems  to  be 
wobbling  here  between  his  enforced  acknowledgment 
that  mind  is  something  new,  something  more  than,  that 
is  to  say,  something  different  from  neural  process,  and 
his  desire  to  identify  it  with  neural  process  in  order 
that  he  may  localize  it  and  thus  bring  it  under  Space- 
Time.  If  he  fails  to  do  this  it  is  all  up  with  his  theory 
of  Space-Time  as  the  matrix  and  the  stuff  of  all 
existents. 

We  may  ask,  for  example,  whether  meaning  is  com- 
pletely expressible  in  physiological  terms'?  Professor 
Alexander  has  described  meaning  as  ''the  whole  com- 
plex that  a  thing  stands  for";  which  takes  it  out  of  the 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  pp.  6,  7. 
'  The  same,  p.  9. 
'  The  same,  p.  11. 
*  The  same,  p.  7. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         199 

region  of  mind.    He  then  raises  the  question  of  its 
mental  status. 

"Now  what  is  there  in  meaning  as  described  which  prevents  us 
from  believing  that  the  conscious  meaning  corresponds  to,  is  as  i 
should  say,  id^entical  with  a  certain  neural  process. 

He  finds  this  identity  in  patterns  which  the  neural 
processes  trace.  He  may  be  using  identity  in  some 
special  sense  which  is  not  apparent.  It  is  at  any  rate 
impossible,  with  the  utmost  good-will,  to  see  how  there 
COM  be  identity  of  quality  between  conscious  meanmg 
and  any  neural  pattern.  The  neural  patterns  may  and 
probably  do  stand  for  conscious  meanings,  much  as  the 
type  patterns  on  this  page  stand  for  words  which  stand 
for  conscious  meanings;  with  this  difference  that  the 
print  patterns  can  be  read  and  the  neural  patterns  can- 
not. The  words  mediate  between  the  print  patterns 
and  the  conscious  meaning,  but  there  are  no  mediators 
between  it  and  the  neural  patterns.  It  seems  to  me 
that  Professor  Alexander  ignores  this  question  of 
quality.    He  says 

"The  mental  processes  are  identical    with  ^ their  equivalent  neural 
processes  and  are  those  processes  as  enjoyed." ' 

Now  you  never  do  enjoy  (nor  contemplate)  your 
neural  processes.  The  neural  processes  are  not  in 
consciousness  at  all.  They  are  completely  hidden  from 
it.  What  is  in  consciousness  is  what  the  idealist  calls 
its  content  and  the  reaHst  calls  its  object;  and  accord- 
ing to  Professor  Alexander  this  is  contemplated  and 
not  enjoyed.  He  has  used  the  word  enjoyment  ex- 
pressly to  show  that  the  neural  process  is  not  contem- 
plated; but  if  it  is  enjoyed  it  must  be  an  element  of 
self-consciousness,  of  the  awareness  of  the  awareness. 
But  can  we  say  that  it  is  that  either? 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  16. 
='The  same,  p.  38.     Note. 


200  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

At  one  point  of  his  enquiry  Professor  Alexander 

raises  the  hopes  of  idealism  high.     He  says 

"Time  is  the  mind  of  Space  and  Space  the  body  of  time."  * 

".  .  .  even  on  the  lowest  level  of  existence,  any  motion  has  its  soul, 
which  is  time."  * 

In  the  order  of  processes  the  next  higher  process  is 
always  the  mind  or  soul  of  the  next  lower.  Let  L  be 
a  certain  level,  then 

"A  complex  of  processes  on  a  level  L  with  the  distinctive  prop- 
erty I  becomes  endowed  within  the  whole  L-thrng  or  body,  with 
a  quality  V  and  the  whole  thing  characterised  by  this  quality  rises 
to  the  level  L'.  The  processes  with  the  emergent  quality  1'  constitute 
the  soul  or  mind  of  a  thing  or  body  which  is  on  the  level  L  .    .    ." 

"Thus  the  soul  of  each  level  is  the  soul  of  a  body  which  is  the 
stuff  of  which  it  may  be  called  the  form."  * 

".  .  .so  that  the  course  of  Time  issues  in  the  growth  of  ever  new 
types  of  soul,  and  in  this  way  all  nature  is  linked  in  a  chain  of 
affinity,  and  there  is  nothing  which  does  not  in  virtue  of  its  con- 
stitution respond  to  ourselves  ...  so  that  there  is  nothing  dead, 
or  senseless  in  the  universe,  Space-Time  being  itself  animated."  * 

"...  bare  Time  is  the  soul  of  its  Space  and  performs  towards  it 
the  office  of  soul  to  its  equivalent  body  or  brain."  ' 

Each  phrase  bursts  like  a  flash-light  over  the  dark- 
ness of  Space-Time,  and  we  think  that  we  have  come 
to  the  very  heart  of  the  matter.  We  think:  Here  at 
last  is  something  to  clothe  the  pure  nakedness  of 
Space-Time.  If  soul  or  mind  is  already  in  Space-Time 
we  are  absolved  from  the  impossible  problem  of  get- 
ting out  of  it  what  was  never  there. 

But  as  this  stupendous  meaning  strikes  him  Profes- 
sor Alexander  is  visibly  perturbed  by  his  own  state- 
ment and  takes  it  all  back.  He  didn't  really  mean  it. 
All  he  meant  was  that  Time  performs  on  Space  an 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  38. 
*The  same,  p.  67. 
•The  same,  p.   68. 
*The  same,  p.  69. 
•The  same,  p.  346. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         201 

operation  something  like  the  transactions  of  mind  with 
body.  These,  he  assures  us  over  and  over  again,  are 
purely  spatio-temporal  .  .  .  "my  mind  is  also  a  living 
material  spatio-temporal  thing."  Why,  rather  than 
that  we  should  believe  anything  so  monstrous  of  his 
pure  Space-Time  he  would  put  it  that,  so  far  from  Time 
being  the  mind  of  anything,  the  mind  itself  is  nothing 
but  time. 

"Bather  than  hold  that  Time  is  a  form  of  mind,  we  must  say  that 
mind  is  a  form  of  Time."  * 

Again : 

"Time  is  an  element  in  the  stuff  of  which  the  universe  and  all  its 
parts  is  made,  and  has  no  special  relation  to  mind,  which  is  but  the 
last  complexity  of  Time  which  is  known  to  us  in  finite  existence."  * 

And  in  this  vehement  repudiation  the  realist  betrays 
his  awareness  of  mind  as  the  disturber  of  his  intellec- 
tual peace.  Mind  is  the  crux  of  Space-Time  realism. 
It  is  the  recalcitrant  element  which  will  not  fit  in  with 
the  theory.  Somehow  or  other  it  must  be  made  to  fit. 
So  Professor  Alexander  docks  it  of  every  character 
which  is  extra-spatial  and  extra-temporal  and  identi- 
fies it  with  neural  process. 

"Each  new  type  of  existence  when  it  emerges  is  expressible  com- 
pletely or  without  residue  in  terms  of  the  lower  stage,  and  therefore 
indirectly  in  terms  of  all  lower  stages;  mind  in  terms  of  living  pro- 
cess. . 


}} » 


And  Professor  Alexander's  theory  of  Space-Time 
compels  him  not  only  to  regard  mind  as  extended  in  its 
neural  basis  but  to  bestow  consciousness  on  neural 
tracts  as  spatial ; 

"in  an  extended  sense  of  'awareness'  each  point  (to  confine  our- 
selves to  Space)  might  be  said  to  be  aware  of  every  other  in  the 
way  in  which  minds  are  aware  of  one  another."  * 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  44. 

*  The  same,  p.  345. 
'The  same,  p.  67. 

*  The  same,  p.  144. 


202  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

Thus: 

"For  clearness  sake  let  us  take  a  particular  case  and  suppose 
a  line  of  colour  ab  which  we  see.  It  excites  through  our  eyes  a 
certain  spatial  tract  in  the  visual  region  .  .  .  and  that  neural  ex- 
citement of  the  centres  is  the  consciousness  of  colour.  Call  the 
neural  tract  A  B.  The  pouits  or  other  parts  of  it  are,  as  merely 
spatial,  aware  of  ab.  Moreover,  they  are  aware,  in  the  same  ex- 
tended sense  of  'awareness',  of  the  points  in  ab  as  being  the  origin 
of  the  whole  transaction  of  light-movements  which  connect  those 
points  with  the   corresponding  neural   centres." ' 

All  this  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  follow.  We  have 
to  account  for  the  mind's  consciousness  of  the  place 
in  space  of  ab.  It  is  not  an  easy  thing  to  account  for 
on  any  theory,  but  even  if  we  granted  that  the  points 
of  the  neural  tract  A  B  can  be  aware  (in  Professor 
Alexander's  extended  sense  of  awareness  which  seems 
to  be  pretty  extensive)  of  the  points  of  ab,  it  is  credit- 
ing the  neural  tract  with  supernatural  intelligence  to 
suppose  that  it  refers  the  local  excitement  of  its 
points  to  the  "transaction  of  light-movements"  along 
a  line  of  colour  which  is  outside  it  and  far  away.  What- 
ever else  it  may  be,  the  neural  tract  is  not  the  place  of 
the  object,  or  the  observer  of  the  place  of  the  object. 

Professor  Alexander  says : 

''Now  if  there  were  no  consciousness  belonging  to  the  excite- 
ment of  A  B  our  minds  would  know  nothing  of  the  places  of  ab." 

I  cannot  see  how  A  B's  excitement  and  consciousness 
of  its  excitement,  if  it  were  conscious,  could  help  the 
mind  which  is  not  conscious  of  A  B's  excitement  and 
consciousness,  or  of  the  existence  of  A  B  at  all;  espe- 
cially as  there  is  no  sense  in  which  A  B  can  be  con- 
scious of  ab  as  an  object.  Supposing  that  the  special 
nature  of  A  B's  excitement,  the  pattern  of  the  neural 
tract,  corresponds  with  the  qualities  and  the  place  and 
distance  of  objects,  and  causes  the  mind  to  be  appro- 
priately conscious,  it  can  only  do  this  by,  as  it  were, 
giving  the  mind  a  jog  in  the  right  direction ;  but  since 

'  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  145. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         203 

this  neural  jog  is  a  material  jog  and  not  a  mental  jog, 
and  a  jog  of  which  the  mind  remains  totally  unaware, 
it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  mind  responds  to  it,  especially 
if  consciousness  is  nothing  but  compresence.  The 
neural  jog  cannot  be  said  to  make  consciousness  more 
compresent  than  it  was  before.  This  is  of  course  the 
reason  why  Professor  Alexander  bestows  awareness 
(in  the  extended  sense)  on  the  neural  tract.  And  this 
is  equivalent  to  an  admission,  by  which  idealism 
profits,  that  if  you  don't  put  it  in  you  will  certainly 
never  get  it  out. 

But,  on  the  theory,  whatever  the  neural  processes 
and  the  sense-organ  have  to  do  with  consciousness,  they 
have  no  conscious  business  with  the  object. 

In  this  connection  it  should  be  noted  that  Professor 
Alexander  rejects  the  theory  of  Psychophysical  Paral- 
lelism on  excellent  grounds. 

"...  the  reason  for  it  disappears  so  soon  as  it  is  recognised  that 
what  corresponds  to  the  mental  is  not  merely  physiological  but 
the  bearer  of  a  new  quality."  * 

And  yet  it  is  this  new  quality  that  he  reduces  ' '  with- 
out residue"  to  neural  process.  And  on  page  fourteen 
of  Volume  Two  he  talks  about  "substantive  processes 
of  mind  like  perceptions  or  images  .  .  .  corresponding 
to  things  in  the  object  world."  If  this  is  to  be  taken 
seriously  it  implies  a  substantive  content  of  mind  such 
as  he  repudiated  on  page  eleven. 

He  further  denies  that  sensory  qualities  depend  on 
sense-organs.  But  his  objections  to  physiological  sub- 
jectivity apply  with  equal  force  to  Space-Time  realism. 
The  ''fundamental  difficulty"  of  relativity  to  a  sense- 
organ  lies  in  supposing  that 

.  .  .  "out  of  physico-chemical  substances,  the  external  thing  and  the 
bodily  organ,  life  can  create  a  new  quality  of  colour  which  is  not 
itself  physico-chemical."  * 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  pp.  9,  10. 
"  The  same,  p.  141. 


204  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

How  then  are  we  to  suppose  that  out  of  spatio- 
temporal  elements,  pure  point-instants,  or  out  of 
motions,  Space-Time  can  create  a  new  quality  of  colour 
which,  as  such,  is  not  spatio-temporal? 

This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  Appearances. 

It  is  admitted  that  in  certain  cases  objects  can  be 
affected  by  the  ** intrusion  of  the  mind."  ^ 

This  sets  up  illusory  appearances  or  illusions.  For 
example,  "colours  seen  by  contrast,  or  the  plane  pic- 
ture of  a  box  seen  solid." 

Professor  Alexander  distinguishes  further  between 
"real"  appearances  of  the  thing,  which  belong  to  it 
though  they  may  vary  relatively  to  the  distance  and 
position  of  the  perceiver,  and  "mere"  appearances, 
which  do  not  belong  to  the  thing  but  arise  from  its 
connection  with  other  things.  These  are  all  non- 
mental. 

You  might  say  that  if  anything  was  mental  it  was 
illusory  appearances  which  are  "introduced  by  the 
mind."  But  on  Professor  Alexander's  theory  illusory 
appearances  are  non-mental  too. 

"For  they  are  prima  facie  on  the  same  level  as  other  physical 
appearances.  .  .  .  An  illusory  appearance  is  illusory  only  in  so 
far  as  it  is  supposed  ...  to  belong  to  the  real  thing  of  which  it 
seems  to  be  the  appearance.  In  so  far  as  it  is  illusory  it  is  not  a 
revelation  of  that  thing  but  of  something  else.  The  illusion  consists 
in  the  erroneous  reference  of  it  to  where  it  does  not  in  fact  belong."  * 

I  do  not  think  there  is  anything  in  this  statement  to 
hit  idealism  hard.  To  begin  with,  the  idealist  will 
agree  with  the  realist  that  the  illusion,  the  mental  error, 
lies  in  the  judgment,  the  false  attribution  of  the  appear- 
ance to  another  reality  not  its  own.  But  it  is  mental 
exactly  in  so  far  as  it  is  not  in  the  object  and  is  created 
or  "introduced  by"  the  mind.  That  ''prima  facie  il- 
lusions are  on  the  same  level  as  other  physical  appear- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  184. 
»The  same,  pp.  185-186. 


V  THE  CEITICAL  PREPAKATIONS         205 

ances"  only  shows  that  physical  appearances  can  be 
mental.  Professor  Alexander  admits  that  illusions  are 
mental  when  he  says  that  "it  is  the  mind  itself  which 
produces  the  distortion."  On  a  strictly  realist  view, 
above  all  on  Professor  Alexander's  own  view  of  cogni- 
tion as  mere  "compresence,"  the  mind  ought  not  to 
be  able  to  do  anything  of  the  sort.  It  should  have  no 
grip  whatever  on  the  object.  Illusions  admitted  to  be 
mental  are  the  thin  end  of  the  idealist's  chisel,  more 
fragile,  if  you  like,  than  the  assumption  that  secondary 
qualities,  ideas  or  "memory  images"  are  mental,  but 
still  strong  enough  to  prize  open  the  realist's  cosmos 
and  let  mind  in. 

Professor  Alexander  says  that  what  the  mind  does 
is  not  to  create  illusory  appearances  but  "to  choose 
them  from  the  world  of  reality. ' ' 

"The  illusory  object  is  as  much  non-mental  as  the  real  appear- 
ance. .  .  .  The  grey  paper  is  seen  green  by  contrast  on  the  red 
ground.  The  paper  itself  is  not  green.  But  there  is  gi-een  in  the 
world.  .    .    ."' 

.  .  .  "My  mental  act  brings  me  face  to  face  with  the  green  in  the 
world." ' 

Now  green  may  be  in  the  world,  but  it  is  not  in  my 
bit  of  the  world  at  my  instant ;  no  explanation  will  al- 
ter the  fact  that  the  green  I  see  on  the  grey  paper  is 
not  "there."    Professor  Alexander  says: 

"We  combine  elements  not  really  combined,  but  both  the  ele- 
ments and  their  form  of  combination  are  features  of  the  real  world 
when  that  world  is  taken  large  enough."* 


But  those  features  are  in  another  space-time,  an- 
other context;  not  in  the  space-time  of  the  "real" 
grey.  We  are  not  at  the  moment  "taking"  that  larger 
world  at  all. 

•  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  214. 
*The   same,  p.  215, 

*  The  same. 


206  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

What  happens  in  illusion  Professor  Alexander  says 
is  that 

"The  mind  squints  at  things  and  one  thing  is  seen  with  the  char- 
acters of  something  else."  ^ 

But,  again,  there  was  no  green  within  my  range  of 
vision  to  squint  at. 

In  the  case  of  "real"  appearance  Professor  Alex- 
ander admits — from  a  realist  the  statement  amounts 
to  an  admission — that  the  mind  "selects"  special  ap- 
pearances relative  to  distance  and  position  from  among 
the  real  qualities  of  the  thing.  Take  the  hotness  of  the 
fire  which  diminishes  or  increases  as  we  recede  from 
or  approach  it.  The  hotness  of  the  fire,  Professor  Al- 
exander says,  is  in  the  fire  itself.  I  gather  that  he 
ascribes  to  the  fire  a  certain  "real"  standard  hotness 
dependent  on  the  "real  motion"  of  the  "fiery  matter," 
hotness  which  can  be  calculated  by  means  of  "instru- 
ments of  measurement  which  are  relatively  independ- 
ent of  our  senses  and  certainly  independent  of  our  sen- 
sations of  heat."  Our  sensations  of  heat,  then,  are 
what  vary  with  our  distance  and  Professor  Alexander 
accounts  for  these  differences  by  the  "selection"  of 
the  mind.^  Selection  is  a  rather  ambiguous  term  in 
this  context,  but  I  think  we  must  understand  by  it  that 
the  mind,  disregarding  all  other  degrees  of  heat  con- 
tained in  the  standard  hotness,  pays  attention  only  to 
the  exact  degrees  appropriate  to  its  distance  and  posi- 
tion with  regard  to  the  fire. 

This,  I  take  it,  because,  on  the  theory,  the  empirical 
quality  of  hotness  must  be  identified  with  the  categorial 
spatio-temporal  motions  of  the  fire  itself,  which  do  not 
vary  with  the  distance  and  position  of  the  perceiver ; 
and  because  the  realist  will  not  admit  that  the  second- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  216. 
='The  same,  p.  187. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         207 

ary  quality  of  hotness  can  be  mental.  The  action  of 
the  mind,  discerned  as  somehow  responsible  for  the 
variation,  is  camouflaged  as  selection. 

But  let  alone  that  a  mind  which  selects,  and  selects 
in  such  a  fashion  as  to  affect  the  appearances  of  ob- 
jects, is  something  more  than  merely  compresent  with 
its  object,  mere  selection  by  the  mind  will  not  account 
for  the  thorough-going  relativity  of  the  appearances 
to  the  mind's  distance  and  position.  The  mind's  dis- 
tance and  position,  observe,  since  Professor  Alexander 
regards  the  mind  as  extended  where  its  body  is  in 
space-time.  At  first  it  would  appear  that  in  giving 
this  extension  to  mind  he  was  making  the  world  safe 
for  new  realism.  But,  when  he  comes  to  deal  with  ap- 
pearances, sudden  and  horrible  danger  arises  from  this 
introduction  of  mind  into  space-time.  Things  in  space- 
time  can  now  become  relative  to  mind;  they  can,  con- 
trary to  the  hypothesis,  be  affected  by  mind.  Almost 
you  could  imagine  that  Professor  Alexander  was  soriy 
that  he  had  let  mind  into  space-time  like  a  body.  But 
on  the  theory  there  was  no  other  place  for  it  to  be  in, 
and  Professor  Alexander  has  to  make  the  best  of  it. 
This  he  does  by  introducing  this  non-committal  (if 
surreptitious)  idea  of  selection.  The  mind  doesn't 
"do"  anything  to  the  fire;  it  only  chooses  from  the 
standard  hotness,  the  hotness  you  can  measure  with 
appropriate  and  incorruptible  instruments,  those  de- 
grees of  hotness  already  contained  in  it  which  are 
(miraculously)  relative  to  its  distance  and  position. 

Professor  Alexander  will  not  admit  that  the  body 

and  its  sense-organs  intervene  between  perception  and 

its  object.    For  this  reason: 

.  .  .  "The  action  of  the  sense-organ  is  part  of  the  process  of  sensing 
the  sensum,  not  its  object.  The  sense-organ  cannot  be  treated  as 
merely  a  thing  which  modifies  the  real  thing  in  the  way  that  motion 
added  to  a  whistle  modifies  the  pitch  of  its  note  or  as  spectacles, 
themselves  coloured,  discolour  the  world  around  us.     The  distort- 


208  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

ing  or  qualifying  thing  must  be  either  observed  or  observable  in  the 
sensible  object.  In  truth  all  appearances  are  prima  facie  real  ones, 
and  later  are  sorted  out."  ^ 

Now  it  is  hard  enough  in  all  conscience  to  say  in  what 
way  a  sense-organ  modifies  a  sense-perception — or  its 
object.  But  we  may  be  pretty  sure  it  is  not  "the  way 
that  motion  added  to  a  whistle  modifies  the  pitch  of 
its  note,  or  as  coloured  spectacles  stain  the  visible 
world.  It  is  not  because  our  sense-organs  move  that 
we  perceive  motion,  or  because  they  are  green  that  we 
perceive  green,  and  not  at  all  because  they  are  objects 
to  us  (they  are  only  objects  to  the  physiologist)  that 
they  affect  our  perceptions  of  objects.  The  relativist 
does  not  contend,  any  more  than  Professor  Alexander, 
that  neural  processes  are  part  of  the  object,  of  the 
sensum. 

It  may  or  it  may  not  be  true  that  the  distorting  or 
qualifying  thing  must  be  "either  observed  or  observ- 
able in  the  sensible  object;"  the  idealist  will  agree  that 
"in  truth  all  appearances  are  prima  facie  real  ones, 
and  later  are  sorted  out."  But  it  is  just  possible  that 
the  sense-organs  and  the  neural  processes  do  some  of 
the  sorting.  The  idealist  distinguishes  between  ap- 
pearances and  reality  precisely  as  the  realist  distin- 
guishes between  them:  by  their  behaviour  and  their 
context.  The  idealist  admits  that  appearances  are 
' '  real ' '  in  their  own  context ;  and  the  realist  displays  a 
certain  perversity  when  he  calls  the  world  of  idealism 
a  world  of  hallucination.  It  is  precisely  the  same  world 
as  his  own,  with  no  detail  omitted,  altered  or  distorted 
— all  the  correlations  of  Space-Time  intact  (indeed  in- 
tacter).  All  that  the  idealist  does  is  to  recognise  its 
ultimate  quality  as  mind-stuff,  and  through  its  char- 
acter as  mind-stuff  its  dependence  on  mind. 

Professor  Alexander  regrets  that  we  cannot  take  the 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  pp.  191-192. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         209 

way  of  idealism;  it  is  so  much  easier.  ''The  way  of 
sin  is  always  easy  and  that  of  virtue  difficult."  (We 
have  seen  some  of  the  difficulties  of  virtue.)  The  easy 
way  of  ideaHsm  leads  to  destruction,  the  destruction 
of  our  faith  in  the  veracity  of  the  universe. 

Now  you  can  only  test  the  veracity  of  the  universe 
by  the  behaviour  of  the  universe  itself.  There  is  no 
reality  outside  it  to  which  we  may  appeal.  Idealist 
and  realist  are  in  the  same  boat  here.  But  the  realist 
complicates  his  problem  by  separating  consciousness 
from  its  object  and  then  raising  all  sorts  of  questions 
about  its  veracity.  And  we  are  left  with  the  contradic- 
tory problem  of  mind  which  is  now  said  to  be  a  new 
thing,  and  now  reducible  without  residue  to  elements 
of  Space-Time. 

If  this  is  not  an  ** overwhelming  difficulty"  I  don't 
know  what  is. 


And  when  we  come  to  the  emergence  of  Deity  the 
overwhelming  is  indeed  upon  us.  Deity 

Deity  also  is  begotten  by  Time  on  Space-Time.  This 
is  the  supreme  instance  of  the  causal  character  of  Time. 
Time  is  not  subject  to  Deity;  Deity  is  subject  to  Time. 
Deity  does  not  exist  till  Time  calls  it  forth  at  its  hour. 
In  order  to  emerge  it  requires  a  special  complexity  of 
Space-Time  in  the  form  of  mind  or  consciousness.  But 
Deity  is  not  mind  or  consciousness  any  more  than  mind 
or  consciousness  was  life  or  hfe  was  inorganic  mat- 
ter.   It  is  a  new  empirical  thing. 

"Deity  in  its  turn  is  a  quality  of  that  which  attends  upon,  or 
more  strictly  speaking,  is  equivalent  to,  previous  or  lower  existences 
of  the  order  of  mind  which  itself  rests  on  a  still  lower  basis  of  qual- 
ities, and  emerges  when  certain  complexities  and  refinements  of  ar- 
rangement have  been  reached."  ^ 

'  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p,  347. 


210  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

"The  highest  of  these  empirical  qualities  known  to  us  is  mind  or 
consciousness.  Deity  is  the  next  higher  empirical  quality  to  the  high- 
est we  know ;  and  ...  at  any  level  of  existence  there  is  a  next  higher 
empirical  quality  which  stands  towards  the  lower  quality  as  deity 
stands  towards  mind."* 

"There  is  a  nisus  in  Space-Time  which,  as  it  has  borne  its  crea- 
tures forward  through  matter  and  life  to  mind,  will  bear  them  for- 
ward to  some  higher  level  of  existence.  .  .  .  Time  itself  compels 
us  to  think  of  this  later  birth  of  Time."  * 

"Deity  is  thus  the  next  higher  empirical  quality  to  mind.  That 
the  universe  is  pregnant  with  such  a  quality  we  are  speculatively 
assured.  What  that  quality  is  we  cannot  know;  for  we  can  neither 
enjoy  nor  still  less  contemplate  it.  Our  human  altars  still  are  raised 
to  the  unknown  God." ' 

Deity,  as  the  next  higher, 

.  .  .  "is  therefore  a  variable  quality,  and  as  the  world  grows  in 
time,  deity  changes  with  it.  .  .  .  On  each  level  of  finite  ci'eatures 
deity  is  for  them  some  'unknown'  (though  not  'unexperienced') 
quality  in  front,  the  real  nature  of  which  is  enjoyed  by  the  crea- 
tures on  the  next  level."  * 

"We  cannot  tell  what  is  the  nature  of  deity,  of  our  deity,  but 
we  can  be  certain  that  it  is  not  mind  ...  or  any  quality  of  the 
order  of  mind,  deity  is  not  spirit,  but  something  different  from  it 
in  kind.  God,  as  the  being  which  possesses  deity  must  be  also  spirit, 
for  .  .  .  deity  presupposes  spirit.  .  .  .  But  ...  his  deity  is  not 
spirit." ' 

Unfortunately  you  can  never  have  your  deity  here 
and  now.  At  whatever  level  you  are  on,  deity  is  al- 
ways about  to  emerge  on  the  next  level.  If  it  were  not 
for  this,  Professor  Alexander's  concept  of  deity  would 
be  the  sublimest  that  has  yet  come  into  philosophy. 
Perhaps,  in  spite  of  this,  it  is.  And  it  should  be  said  at 
once  that  it  makes  many  things  conceivable  that  were 
not  conceivable  on  the  older  theory  of  the  Absolute. 
God  can  be  immanent  in  the  universe  in  a  clearly  in- 
telligible way,  without  compromising  his  deity. 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  345. 
^'The  same,  p.  346. 
"The  same,  p.  347. 
*The  same,  p.  348. 
"The  same,  p.  349. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         211 

For  it  is  the  only  concept  of  Deity  that  completely 
solves  the  problem  of  evil.  If  Deity  has  not  happened 
yet,  it  is  clearly  not  responsible  for  anything  that  has 
happened  up  till  now.  And  since  it  has  only  come  into 
the  world  subsequent  to  all  regrettable  incidents,  it 
cannot  be  said  to  have  had  any  knowledge  of  them. 
We  have  not  got  to  reconcile  God's  fore-knowledge 
and  our  freedom,  or  his  power  and  his  goodness.  He 
is  completely  absolved  from  all  complicity  as  regards 
this  sad,  bad  world,  which  he  has  not  produced,  which 
he  had  no  intention  of  producing,  which,  on  the  con- 
trary, has  produced  him. 

And  if  the  problem  of  evil  were  the  only  problem,  it 
would  be  worth  while  closing  with  Professor  Alexan- 
der's offer  of  his  Deity.  His  Deity  is,  or  rather  will 
be,  real  and  great  beyond  all  the  dreams  of  metaphysi- 
cal imagination.  We  are  not  shut  up  with  a  God  al- 
leged to  be  all-good,  all-powerful  and  all-knowing,  who 
has  yet  turned  out  a  universe  which  would  be  very 
creditable  coming  from  a  Deity  who  was  something 
less  than  all  that,  but  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  some- 
what disappointing  as  the  achievement  of  all-knowl- 
edge and  all-goodness,  and  all-power.  Who  can  con- 
template the  world  as  it  is  and  not  say  that  an  all- 
knowing,  all-good  and  all-powerful  Deity  ought,  with 
infinite  time  at  his  disposal,  to  have  done  a  little  bet- 
ter than  that? 

Still,  there  was  one  thing  to  be  said  for  him.  The 
existence  of  this  God  might  be  a  perfect  scandal,  but 
he  was  supposed  to  exist.  He  was,  at  least,  good  for 
that.  But  Professor  Alexander's  Deity  does  not  exist, 
and  is  not  meant  to  exist.  There  are,  as  we  shall  see, 
grave  metaphysical  obstacles  to  his  existence. 

To  begin  with,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  Professor 
Alexander's  Deity  is  not  immanent.  Because  of  his 
theory  of  Space-Time,  and  of  deity  as  an  empirical 


212  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

birth  of  Time,  Professor  Alexander  is  unable  to  speak 
of  God  as  immanent  and  at  the  same  time  transcendent. 
Deity  is  ''located  in  a  portion  only  of  the  universe." 

"Thus,  empirical  as  deity  is,  the  infinity  of  his  distinctive  char- 
acter separates  him  from  all  finites."  * 

This,  because  if  God  were  everywhere  and  every- 
when,  immanent  in  the  whole  universe  here  and  now, 
he  would,  contrary  to  the  "plan"  of  him,  be  existing 
here  and  now  actually,  and  not  as  the  assumed  nisus  or 
next  higher  empirical  quality. 

And  Deity  is  not  transcendent  as  regards  Time  since 
it  is  the  birth  of  Time,  and  as  the  birth  of  Time  it  has 
aU  Space-Time  behind  and  outside  it. 

And  yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  this  God  is  imma- 
nent and  transcendent,  too.  As  the  bearer  of  a  new 
quality  he  may  be  said  to  be  transcendent  as  regards 
all  lower  qualities;  and  as  the  nisus  in  Space-Time 
driving  on  to  the  emergence  of  Deity  God  is  immanent 
in  Space-Time.  As  each  lower  level  plays  body  to  the 
*'soul"  of  the  next  higher,  so  mind  or  spirit,  and  we 
ourselves  as  minds  or  spirits  are  the  body  of  God. 

"For  him,  therefore,  .  .  .  the  distinction  of  org'anic  and  special 
sensa  disappears.  Our  minds,  therefore,  and  everything  else  in  the 
world  are  'organic  sensa'  of  God.  All  we  are  the  hunger  and  thirst, 
the  heart -beats  and  the  sweat  of  God." ' 

No  criticism  should  overlook  or  fail  to  do  justice  to 
the  metaphysical  grandeur  of  this  idea.  The  concept 
of  Deity  as  the  nisus  is  almost  the  answer  to  half  the 
difficulties  we  have  raised. 

But  it  means  that  Deity  is  never  realised  here  and 
now.  ''God,  as  the  possessor  of  Deity  ...  is  a  quali- 
tied  infinite. "  If  he  realised  himself,  he  would  instant- 
ly become  finite;  the  succession  of  realisations  would 

•  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  358. 

*  The  same,  p.  357. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         213 

produce,  not  infinite  Deity,  but  a  succession  of  finite 
deities. 

"The  qualitied  infinite,  if  the  quality  could  be  actually  realised, 
would  present  overwhelming  difficulties,  when  we  ask  if  it  is  subject 
to  the  categories.  .  .  .  It  is  .  .  .  not  an  individual,  for  an  individual 
is  the  union  of  particular  and  universal.  And  realised  deity  is  not 
universal,  since,  representing  as  it  does  the  whole,  it  admits  of 
no  repetition.  .  .  ,  Neither  is  it  a  substance  ...  it  admits  of  no 
relation  to  other  substances,  but  is  the  whole  of  Space-Time  on  a 
reduced  scale.  In  this  break-down  of  the  attempt  to  apply  to  it 
the  categories  ...  it  betrays  its  merely  ideal  character  of  a  pic- 
ture and  nothing  more.  The  picture  is  not  the  less  eminently  worth 
drawing.  Only  nothing  actual  corresponds  to  it.  .  .  .  Deity  is  a 
nisus  and  not  an  accomplishment."  * 

If  after  these  flat  statements  we  still  ask 

"Does  infinite  deity  exist?" 
The  answer  is  that 

"the  world  in  its  infinity  tends  toward  infinite  deity,  or  is  preg- 
nant with  it,  but  that  infinite  deity  does  not  exist;  .  .  .  if  it  did, 
God — the  actual  world  possessing  deity — would  cease  to  be  infinite 
God  and  break  up  into  a  multiplicity  of  finite  gods,  which  would  be 
merely  a  higher  race  of  creatures  than  ourselves  with  a  God  be- 
yond  ..." 

.   .   .  "the  attainment  of  deity  makes  deity  finite"  .    .   . 

"God  as  an  actual  existent  is  always  becoming  deity  but  never 
attains  it.    He  is  the  ideal  God  in  embryo."* 

Thus  even  that  temporary  and  progressive  realisa- 
tion of  Deity  cannot  be ;  because  it  would  make  Deity 
finite.  We  all  have  to  give  up  something  of  our  God. 
The  absolutist  cheerfully  gives  up  God's  morality  to 
save  his  absoluteness.  The  pragmatist  gives  up  his 
absoluteness  to  save  his  morality.  It  remained  for 
Professor  Alexander  to  make  the  supreme  renuncia- 
tion.   He  sacrifices  God  himself  to  save  God 's  infinity. 

Now  Deity  was  only  introduced  into  Space-Time  as 
a  concession  to  the  religious  consciousness.     Profes- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  364. 
»The  same,  p.  365. 


214  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  v 

sor  Alexander  considers  that  the  appetite  for  Deity 
should  be  satisfied. 

But  does  this  concept  of  Deity  satisfy  it?  This  un- 
realised ideal  which  is  jam  tomorrow,  and  better  jam 
the  day  after  tomorrow,  but  never  jam  today? 

.  ,  .  "it  is  this  distinctive  religious  appetite  .  .  .  which,  though  it 
does  not  make  its  object  discovers  it."  ^ 

How,  since  its  object  never  is? 

"...  religious  sentiment  ...  is  the  feeling  of  our  going  out  to 
something  not  ourselves  and  greater  and  higher  than  ourselves, 
with  which  we  are  in  commimion."  * 

With  which  we  are  certainly  not  in  communion,  since 
Deity  hasn't  happened  yet.  With  which  we  never  shall 
be  in  communion  since,  if  it  were  to  happen,  it  would 
always  be  a  stage  ahead  of  us.  With  which  we  need  not 
hope  to  be  in  communion,  since  it  never  can  happen. 

Professor  Alexander  says  of  his  non-existent  Deity, 

"If  man  wants  God  and  depends  on  him,  God  wants  man  and 
is  so  far  dependent"  .  .  .  "not  only  does  he  matter  to  us  but  loe 
matter  to  him."* 

This  is  admirable,  but  how  can  it  happen,  if  God 
hasn't  happened?  The  nisus  on  our  level  is  just  our- 
selves, straining  forward  to  the  Deity  which  is  not  yet, 
and  never  will  be.  How  can  this  Deity  help  us,  or  we 
it? 

Two  final  criticisms  may  be  made  here.  This  con- 
cept of  Deity  is  open  to  the  objections  which  Professor 
Alexander  brings  against  the  Fourth  Dimension  as  a 
purely  intellectual  construction.  It  is  a  construction 
on  precisely  the  same  lines  of  formal  analogy.  Also,  if 
the  analogy  were  strictly  held  to,  since  the  next  higher 
levels  to  life  and  mind  respectively  are  not  life  and 

'  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  374. 
•The  same,  p.  373. 
*The  same,  pp.  386-388. 


V  THE  CRITICAL  PREPARATIONS         215 

mind,  the  next  higher  level  to  Deity  cannot  be  Deity. 
And  this  is  to  make  Deity  finite  with  a  vengeance. 

Once  more,  the  religious  consciousness  is  in  a  hor- 
rible position  if  it  can  only  save  God's  perfection  at 
the  price  of  his  existence,  or  his  existence  at  the  price 
of  his  perfection.  The  problem  for  the  new  idealism 
is  to  find,  if  it  can,  a  way  out  of  this  dilemma ;  if  pos- 
sible to  show  Deity  as  in  a  living  process  of  self-reali- 
sation, and  yet  keep  the  immensity  of  Professor  Alex- 
ander's vision. 

END  OF  BOOK  ONE 


BOOK  TWO 
RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM 


VI 

SPACE,  TIME  AND  CONSCIOUSNESS 


We  can  no  longer  doubt  (if  indeed  it  was  ever  doubt- 
ful) that  the  worst  problems  in  philosophy  arise  from  '^l^^^ 
our  fatal  habit  of  abstracting.  Hegel  spent  most  of 
his  time  trying  to  prove  that  abstraction  was  the  vice 
of  all  systems  except  his  own ;  and  his  own  failed  chief- 
ly owing  to  its  inevitable  divorce  of  thought  from  the 
sense-world  of  nature. 

But  it  is  on  the  problems  of  Space  and  Time  that 
this  and  all  other  abstractions  have  borne  most  heavily. 
In  the  revulsion  against  this  abuse  of  thought  it  has 
been  assumed,  as  we  have  seen,  that  the  antinomies 
of  Space  and  Time  were  entirely  due  to  our  arbitrary 
tampering  with  their  integrity  and  with  the  integrity 
of  the  cosmos  as  a  whole.  We  have  not  only  taken 
Space  and  Time  as  abstractions  from  the  context  of 
events,  but  we  have  taken  them  as  abstractions  from 
each  other;  and  we  have  wondered  at  the  contradic- 
tions which  ensued.  For  all  our  conception  of  their 
unity,  it  is  as  if  a  man  should  turn  his  trousers  inside 
out  and  marvel  at  the  miracle  of  their  still  fitting  him, 
or  divide  them  back  from  front  and  either  declare  tri- 
umphantly that  he  has  now  two  trousers,  or  else  com- 
plain of  the  solution  of  continuity. 

Most  certainly  solution  of  continuity  did  follow  from 
the  division  of  Space  from  Time,  and  by  now  it  has 
become  pretty  evident  that  they  must  be  taken  to- 
gether.   Professor  Alexander  has  shown  most  convinc- 

219 


220  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

ingly  that  Time  enters  into  the  very  structure  of  Space, 
and  that  the  unfolding  of  Space  in  three  dimensions 
would  be  impossible  without  Time.^  The  whole  trend 
of  modern  philosophy  is  in  the  direction  of  the  synthe- 
sis of  Time  and  Space  since  this  conception  first  ap- 
peared in  M.  Bergson's  system.  It  is  the  secret  of 
Professor  Whitehead's  four-dimensional  geometry 
and  the  foundation  of  his  concept  of  nature.  It  under- 
lies the  equations  of  modern  physics  in  which  Space 
and  Time  appear  as  interchangeable  terms.  It  is  the 
principle  of  the  Principle  of  Relativity.  And,  as  we 
have  just  seen,  the  first  great  system  of  Realism,  Pro- 
fessor Alexander's,  is  based  on  the  essential  unity  of 
Time  and  Space. 

All  these  theories  differ  very  decidedly  from  each 
other  as  to  the  nature  and  the  relations  of  Space  and 
Time.  Professor  Whitehead  regards  both  Time  and 
Space  as  empirical  relations  of  events,  these  being  the 
ultimate  realities.  To  Professor  Alexander  they  are 
not  relations ;  they  are  the  ultimate  terms  to  which  all 
things  are  reducible ;  they  are  absolute  and  august  and 
pure  in  their  a  prioriness.  To  Professor  Einstein  they 
are  purely  relative  to  bodies  of  reference  and  to  each 
other.  To  M.  Bergson  serial  time  is  a  spurious  sort 
of  time  which  is  really  space;  this  spatial  time  is  un- 
real time;  to  Professor  Alexander  Space-Time,  or 
Time-Space  is  the  reality,  and  there  is  no  other  sort 
of  time  or  space.  But  they  one  and  all  agree  that 
Space  and  Time  must  be  taken  together.  One  and  all 
they  insist  (except  Professor  Einstein  who  doesn't 
worry  about  it)  that  if  only,  onl^  you  will  take  them 
together  every  contradiction  will  vanish  from  Space 
and  Time.  If  you  take  them  together  Time  will  stop 
all  the  gaps  in  Space ;  Space  will  fill  up  the  interstices 
of  Time;  events  will  step  in,  overlapping,  and  cover 

^  See  Appendix  II,  pp.  315-317. 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       221 

all  the  cuts  of  serial  Time ;  Space  will  stretch  Time  out 
into  duration,  and  Time  will  sweep  Space  out  before  it 
into  extension. 

Divide  them  and  they  at  once  fall  apart  into  their 
point-instants. 

But  it  has  been  made  clear  (at  least  I  hope  it  has) 
that  in  the  very  systems  that  undertook  to  safeguard 
us  from  this  catastrophe,  the  antinomies  have  burst 
loose  again.  The  continuity  of  the  compact  series 
broke  down  under  analysis.  The  continuity  of  Profes- 
sor Whitehead's  system  of  events  and  event-particles 
broke  down.  It  left  us  with  all  nature  at  a  moment 
still  on  our  hands.  Even  in  Professor  Alexander's  sys- 
tem, which  certainly  held  out  the  greatest  promise  of 
security,  which  almost  compelled  us  to  believe  in  its 
solution,  the  antinomies  burst  loose,  and  Space-Time 
itself  betrayed  contradictions  of  its  own.^ 

Now  the  one  striking  thing  about  all  the  solutions 
which  were  offered  is  that  they  are  themselves  abstrac- 
tions. In  all  the  theories  we  have  considered  conscious- 
ness has  been  left  out.  It  has  been  left  out  on  purpose, 
in  accordance  with  the  demands  of  realism.  It  has  not 
been  allowed  to  enter  the  tests  lest  it  should  pervert 
the  conditions,  and  confuse  the  problem  at  the  very 
start.  And  on  the  whole  it  has  been  a  good  thing  for 
idealism  that  this  experiment  of  keeping  mind  out 
should  have  been  made.  Mind  ought  not  to  be  taken 
for  granted ;  it  ought  not  to  be  allowed  to  confuse  the 
problem ;  it  ought  not  to  be  brought  in  at  all  until  other 
solutions  have  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  Ideal- 
ists should  be  grateful  to  realism  for  this  drastic  ex- 
periment ;  because  the  only  chance  for  idealism  was  to 
leave  mind  out  just  for  once  and  see  what  would  hap- 
pen. 

"We  have  been  present  at  this  experiment  and  we 

*See  above:  "Space,  Time  and  Deity,"  pp.  162-213. 


222  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

have  seen  what  has  happened.  We  have  seen  the  ob- 
stinate resurgence  of  those  contradictions  which,  mak- 
ing the  reality  of  time  and  space  and  motion  unthink- 
able, seemed  to  strike  at  the  very  foundations  of  mathe- 
matical and  physical  science.  If  mathematics  and 
physics  have  survived  the  shock,  it  is  because  they 
have  held  themselves  above  the  battle;  they  have  re- 
fused to  be  involved  in  the  contentions  of  philosophy. 
It  is  indifferent  to  mathematics  and  to  physics  whether 
mind  is  dragged  in  or  left  out.  It  is  even  more  indiffer- 
ent to  them  what  view  philosophy  takes  of  their  own 
particular  assumptions  and  constructions.  The  be- 
haviour and  the  relations  of  numbers  and  geometrical 
figures  and  bodies  in  motion  will  be  the  same  whether 
realism  or  idealism  is  right  as  to  the  ultimate  nature 
of  space  and  time  and  matter.  This  is  the  sense  in 
which  what  Professor  Whitehead  says  is  true,  that 
"No  perplexity  concerning  the  object  of  knowledge  can 
be  solved  by  saying  there  is  a  mind  knowing  it. ' '  But 
I  do  not  think  that  perplexities  concerning  the  behav- 
iour of  objects  and  their  relations  among  themselves 
are  of  the  kind  that  metaphysics  should  be  required  to 
solve.  That  is  what  science  is  there  for.  What  is  re- 
quired of  metaphysics  is  rather  the  solution  of  pre- 
cisely such  problems  as  the  antinomies  of  Space  and 
Time,  the  origin  of  the  categories  and  the  relation  of 
mind  to  nature,  of  consciousness  to  its  object.  And  as 
you  will  certainly  never  solve  the  problem  of  conscious- 
ness by  leaving  finite  consciousness  out,  so  I  think  you 
will  not  solve  the  contradictions  of  Space  and  Time,  or 
simplify  the  affairs  of  the  categories,  by  leaving  out 
ultimate  mind.  At  any  rate  the  experiment  has  been 
tried,  and  I  think  it  has  failed. 

It  is  idealism's  turn  now.  The  idealist  may  have 
even  worse  luck — ^his  is  in  all  conscience  a  dangerous 
adventure — but  the  experiment  is  worth  trying. 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       223 

Some  unkind  person  is  sure  to  say  that  it  has  been 
tried  before,  and  that  if  Kant  and  Hegel  didn't  succeed 
at  it — The  inference  is  distressing.  And,  arrogance 
apart,  it  isn't  enough  simply  to  go  on  assuming  that 
Space  and  Time  are  ultimate  forms  of  consciousness 
and  see  what  happens.  We  have  seen.  Kant  assumed 
it,  and  Hegel  roped  Space  and  Time  in  among  the  logi- 
cal categories,  and  neither  the  Critique  nor  the  Logic, 
nor  Mr.  Bosanquet  and  Mr.  Bradley  prevented  New 
Realism  from  happening. 

But  Kant  more  or  less  left  the  matter  there.  He 
gave  Space  and  Time  a  doubtful  status  somewhere 
between  thought  and  sense.  The  schemata  are  am- 
phibious organisms,  hovering  between  two  realms,  and 
unfitted  to  survive.  Kant  did  not  go  down  into  the 
thick  of  Space  and  Time  and  show  that  the  presence 
or  absence  of  consciousness  made  a  difference.  On 
the  contrary,  it  was  notoriously  Kant  who  saddled 
idealism  with  his  antinomies,  and  insisted  on  thought's 
powerlessness  to  solve  them.  As  for  Hegel,  he  con- 
tented himself  with  proving  that  Space  and  Time  were 
as  good  categories  as  any  other;  and  though  in  his 
system  their  contradictions  follow  all  other  contradic- 
tions to  sublimation  in  the  Absolute,  the  Absolute  can- 
not be  said  to  have  extinguished  them  here  and  now. 

Space  and  Time  are  in  the  melting  pot. 

And  it  is  precisely  because  New  Realism  has  hap- 
pened that  experiment  is  still  possible. 

If,  as  I  believe,  idealism,  which  has  lost  itself  in 
Space  and  Time  torn  apart,  is  to  find  its  way  out 
through  Space  and  Time  taken  together,  that  will  be 
owing  less  to  its  own  efforts  in  the  past  than  to  Pro- 
fessor Alexander,  who  has  shown  us  how  to  ''take 
Space  and  Time  seriously";  shown  that  Space  with 
Time  cannot  just  be  shoved  away  among  the  cate- 
gories and  left  there,  and  that,  when  criticism  has  done 


224  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

its  worst,  their  status  remains  only  one  step  removed 
from  that  of  ultimate  and  supreme  reality. 

If  they  are  not,  as  he  holds,  ultimates,  they  are  at 
least  penultimates,  the  simplest  forms  of  conscious- 
ness. 

ii 

Let  us  begin,  then,  with  the  simplest  things,  pure 
Con-       point-instants  in  Space-Time, 
scious-        -^    have  seen  how  Time,  taken  with  Space,  breaks 

ness  '  ^  ^         '       ^ 

and  it  up,  and  inflicts  on  it  rupture  in  Time,  the  re-births 
T^^  of  repetition.  All  Space,  over  and  over  again,  instant 
after  instant.  For  pure  Space-Time  there  is  no  bridge 
from  point  to  point ;  Time  makes  none ;  it  only  serves, 
in  the  form  of  motion,  to  pick  out  point  from  point,  and 
thus  draw  attention  to  the  discontinuity.  The  one  in- 
stant that  covers  all  points  does  not  penetrate  the  gaps 
between  them  to  join  them  up  into  a  continuum;  Time 
penetrates  Space  only  to  disintegrate  it  further.  Time 
taken  by  itself,  is  utterly  attenuated ;  so  far  from  cov- 
ering Space,  it  falls  like  a  thin  thread  of  rain,  drop 
by  drop,  across  that  immensity  and  for  ever.  This  is 
the  old  imperfect  view  of  Time.  But  Time  taken  as 
Space  tells  off  the  universe,  immensity  after  immens- 
ity, for  ever. 

And,  likewise,  for  pure,  mindless  Time-Space  there 
is  no  lien  between  its  instants.  Space  only  holds  down 
one  instant  at  that  instant  and  lets  go  to  hold  down 
the  next.  Time  can  never  hope  to  recover  its  own  past 
or  to  grasp  its  own  future.  It  knows  nothing  but  the 
present,  and  the  present  is  a  vanishing  point  between 
a  not-yet-existing  future  and  a  no-longer-existing  past. 
In  the  same  way  the  body  in  motion  lets  go  the  past 
point-instant  and  has  no  grip  of  the  future  as  such.  It 
is  at  a  point  at  an  instant ;  at  another  point  at  another 
instant,  and  as  far  as  the  elements  of  time,  space  and 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       225 

matter  are  concerned  that  is  all  that  can  be  said  about 
its  motion.  The  change  of  point-instants  which  is  the 
essence  of  the  affair  remains  a  miracle.  You  may  as 
well  say  that  the  moving  body  is  at  rest  and  that  its 
movement  is  due  to  the  passage  of  Space-Time.  And 
a  body  at  rest  is  in  no  better  case ;  the  instant  gone  is 
gone  for  it  utterly.  In  a  sense,  so  far  from  being  at 
rest,  it  would  appear  in  its  abstraction  to  be  travelling 
with  inconceivable  velocity  through  time. 

In  all  this  we  have  had  no  body  of  reference,  or 
rather,  no  mind  of  reference.  We  have  been  dealing 
with  unreal  abstractions,  purely  physical  events  hap- 
pening impossibly  '^outside"  mind. 

And  as  a  matter  of  fact,  in  our  perceptual  experi- 
ence things  do  not  happen  so.  There  is  an  apparent 
continuity  of  point-instants;  bodies  do  move  through 
unmoving  space  in  moving  time ;  they  do  stand  still  in 
a  moving  time  and  unmoving  space;  and  their  move- 
ment is  apparently  continuous;  it  is  Professor  Mon- 
tague's '^ uninterrupted  and  unitary  slide." 

And  the  fact  that  this  does  actually  happen  in  our 
percepttml  experience  should  give  us  pause.  Is  it  a 
naif  idealism  that  wonders  whether,  after  all,  percep- 
tion may  not  have  something  to  do  with  it  I  Not  more 
naif,  I  think,  than  the  realism  which  assumes  that  you 
can  subtract  perception  and  everything  will  go  on  as 
before,  or  add  it  and  it  will  make  no  difference. 

Only  in  unminded  Space-Time,  powerless  to  retain 
its  own  past  and  future,  is  there  incurable  disintegra- 
tion. Introduce  consciousness  that  joins  instant  to  in- 
stant and  holds  past,  present  and  future  together  in 
one  duration;  that  joins  point  to  point  and  holds 
length,  breadth  and  thickness  together  in  one  exten- 
sion; that  links  point  with  instant  and  point-instant 
with  point-instant  in  one  Space-Time ;  see  Space-Time 
once  for  all  as  existing,  not  in  and  by  and  for  itself, 


226  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

but  as  the  simplest  and  most  universal  form  of  con- 
sciousness, so  that  all  events  happening  in  Space-Time 
are,  ipso  facto  happening  in  consciousness,  and  con- 
tradiction disappears.  Consciousness  secures  to 
events  their  range  in  Space,  their  hold  on  Time,  their 
past,  their  present  and  their  future,  in  a  word,  their 
continuity. 

In  minded  Space-Time  motion  becomes  once  more 
thinkable;  bodies  can  and  do  move  (relatively,  if  you 
prefer  it  to  each  other  and  the  observer)  in  the  finite 
Space-Time  of  perception,  without  let  or  hindrance 
from  infinity.  Zeno's  Achilles  will  really  overtake  the 
tortoise,  his  arrow  will  fly,  his  approaching  processions 
will  really  be  in  line,  since  consciousness  keeps  their 
positions  for  them,  his  diverging  processions  will  cover 
their  full  sum  of  instants,  because  consciousness  holds 
them  in  their  past  time.  The  world  may  have  a  be- 
ginning and  an  end  in  Space-Time,  since  conscious- 
ness began  it  and  may  end  it;  while  consciousness, 
which  the  world  is,  will  have  no  beginning  and  no  end. 
Substance,  or  matter,  will  be  discrete  for  abstract 
analytic  thought,  but  continuous  for  concrete  synthetic 
perception. 

Consider  change,  the  passing  of  events,  without  con- 
sciousness and  with  consciousness.  Unminded  change 
will  have  all  the  discontinuity  of  the  Space-Time  whose 
point-instants  it  in  vain  redistributes.  And  this, 
whether  you  take  it  as  the  pure  passing  of  events,  or 
as  change  of  states  in  an  object,  of  qualities  in  a  sub- 
stance. The  unminded  event  when  gone  is  gone,  and 
might  as  well  never  have  been ;  its  trail  in  the  present 
and  the  future  is  effaced  so  soon  as  made.  Events  do 
not  of  themselves  recur.  An  event  dies  in  space-time 
and  is  succeeded  by  another  event,  a  miraculous  new 
birth  unrelated  to  its  predecessor.  Unrelated,  because 
its  point-instants  themselves  have  perished,  and  Space- 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       227 

Time  in  itself  has  no  means  of  relating,  of  holding 
events  together.  The  same  thing  applies  to  change  of 
qualities  in  a  substance.  The  substance  in  itself  has 
no  grip  on  its  qualities ;  its  past  states  are  past  for  it ; 
so  far  as  it  is  its  qualities,  it  is  all  impermanence.  Its 
qualities  co-exist  in  space ;  but  only  for  an  instant ;  they 
and  it  with  them  share  the  impermanence  of  time. 

But  minded  change  has  not  this  utterly  disintegrat- 
ing character.  In  consciousness,  which  has  both  past 
and  present  in  its  hold  and  at  least  an  outlook  on  the 
future,  in  consciousness  the  passing  event  is  not  dead, 
is  not  wholly  past ;  it  lives  on  in  its  successor.  In  the 
same  way  the  object  whose  past  states  are  held  in  con- 
sciousness endures  as  an  object  and  is  not  lost  with 
its  changing  states.  And  in  the  same  way,  again,  the 
enduring  state  endures  throughout  its  times,  through 
consciousness  that  keeps  all  its  times.  For  in  con- 
sciousness and  consciousness  alone  is  there  continuity; 
and  only  so  far  as  Space-Time  is  consciousness  has  it 
duration. 

I  do  not  think  you  can  exaggerate  the  importance  of 
memory  and  anticipation  as  ensuring  continuity.  Only 
the  bad  habit  of  abstraction  has  made  it  possible  to  re- 
gard events  and  objects  as  existing  on  their  own  ac- 
count in  a  real  outside  Space-Time  existing  on  its  own 
account.  But  a  relentless  analysis  of  this  concept  re- 
veals its  inherent  contradiction. 

Again,  consider  the  perspectives  of  Space-Time ;  and 
take  them  with  perceptual  consciousness  left  out.  We 
have  then  to  conceive,  as  best  we  may,  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  incompatible  perspectives  co-existing  in  the 
same  Space-Time ;  that  is  to  say,  the  outlines  of  figures 
overlapping  and  interpenetrating  each  other,  and  ob- 
jects literally  occupying  each  other's  space-times  in  a 
way  that  does  not  happen  in  perceptual  experience,  and 
by  all  the  known  laws  of  mathematics  and  physics  can- 


228  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

not  happen.  Yet  on  the  theory  all  these  impossible 
things  must  be  happening,  for  the  simple  reason  that 
strict  realism  allows  no  other  Space-Time  but  the  one 
real  one  for  things  to  happen  in. 

But  admit  that  different  perspectives  may  be  the 
perspectives  of  different  finite  consciousnesses,  each 
carrying  its  own  finite  space- time, ^  and  the  relevance 
of  these  problems  disappears. 

And  there  are  certain  facts  of  consciousness  that  on 
this  view  acquire  a  significance  they  would  not  have  on 
any  other. 

We  can  be  vividly  aware  of  many  percepts  at  the 
same  time;  but  only  of  one  distinct  concept  at  one 
time.  That  is  because  our  percepts  are  spread  out  all 
at  once  in  our  space;  whereas  our  thoughts  succeed 
each  other  in  time.  And  this,  whether  we  are  perceiv- 
ing objects  in  present  time,  or  remembering,  which  is 
a  way  of  perceiving  objects  in  past  time,  or  anticipat- 
ing, which  is  a  way  of  perceiving  objects  in  future 
time.  The  number  of  objects  that  we  can  perceive  at 
one  time  is  limited  only  by  our  perceptual  range  and 
our  capacity  to  attend  to  the  content  of  consciousness. 
This  capacity  may  cover  all  our  world  of  sensation. 
For  example,  I  am  aware  at  this  moment  of  a  white 
page  of  paper  with  faint  blue  lines,  of  the  table  it  is 
laid  on,  of  vague  mutilated  pieces  of  furniture  and 
curtain  and  window-pane  on  the  outer  ring  of  vision, 
of  my  hands  and  the  sleeves  of  my  gown,  of  my  right 
hand  with  its  pen  moving  over  the  paper,  of  the  pas- 
sage of  an  omnibus  and  the  hooting  of  a  taxi  in  the 
road  outside.  I  am  also  aware  of  the  contact  of  my 
fingers  with  the  pen  and  of  my  hand  and  wrist  with 
the  paper  and  the  table.  And  if  there  were  a  smell  in 
the  room  I  should  be  aware  of  that  too.     All  these 

^  For  the  correlation  of  these  perspectives,  see  below,  "Space,  Time 
and  Other  Consciousnesses,"  pp.  245-259. 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       229 

things  are  instantaneously  together  in  the  field  of  my 
awareness.  And  if,  instead  of  being  shut  up  in  a  small 
room  with  my  head  bent  down,  I  stood  out  of  doors 
looking  at  a  wide  landscape,  I  should  see  an  immense 
number  of  things  at  any  appreciable  instant.  But  to 
set  them  all  down  in  writing  takes  many  instants.  I 
can  only  write  one  word  at  a  time,  and  I  can  only  think 
one  distinct  thought  at  a  time.  I  can  only  hold  one 
concept  (which  may  be  a  simple  or  a  complex  one)  be- 
fore me  for  contemplation  at  a  time.  If  I  lay  out  my 
complex  concept  into  its  elements,  translating,  say, 
'  *  procrastination ' '  into  ' '  putting-off-till-to-morrow, ' ' 
or  more  precisely,  "pushing-away-from-now-till-the- 
day-af ter-to-day, "  I  cannot  do  this  all  at  once,  each 
element  demands  its  instant. 

It  is  true  that  by  visualising  my  concepts  in  the  form 
of  symbols,  which  may  be  either  words  or  concrete 
images  of  the  things  they  stand  for,  I  can  be  aware  of 
several  at  a  time ;  for  then  I  plant  them  out  in  space. 
This  is  the  case  with  our  geometrical  concepts  which 
we  visualise  as  figures  in  space.  But  when  we  are,  as 
it  were,  looking  on  at  our  concepts  we  are  not  using 
them,  we  are  not  thinking.  The  primary  stuff  of  think- 
ing is  fluid.  But  the  solid  stratification  of  sensible  ex- 
perience is  like  a  chord  held  down,  while  the  play  of 
thought,  like  a  melody,  runs  on  and  over  it  with  a  vary- 
ing tempo.  As  space  takes  the  leading  part  in  percep- 
tual experience,  so  time  takes  the  leading  part  in  con- 
ceptual thinking.  The  passage  of  thought  is  the  very 
passage  of  time  itself. 

Now  on  the  realist  theory  it  is  of  course  clear  why 
we  should  be  able  to  perceive  so  many  things  at  once, 
since  our  percepts  are  already  laid  out  before  us  in  the 
form  of  independent  objects  with  which  consciousness 
is  merely  compresent.  But  since,  on  the  theory,  we  are 
equally  compresent  with  our  concepts  and  contemplate 


230  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

them  with  the  same  detachment,  it  is  not  at  all  clear 
why  we  should  be  thus  limited  to  one  concept  at  a  time. 
On  the  realist  theory  we  look  on  at  our  concepts;  so 
why,  when  perception  is  of  things  co-existent,  should 
conception  be  only  of  things  succeeding?  Since  con- 
cepts are  out  there,  not  in  space,  but  in  some  region 
specified  as  non-mental,  anyhow  outside  in  the  unmind- 
ed  world  of  reality,  why  should  we  not  conceive  co-ex- 
istence ? 

And  at  first  sight,  if  idealism  is  true  and  time  is  the 
form  of  thought,  it  seems  a  safe  guess  that  this  may  be 
why  our  thinking  should  take  time,  and  why,  moving,  it 
should  only  grasp  one  concept  at  a  time. 

But  the  matter  is  not  so  simple  as  all  that.  In  the 
first  place,  time  is  not  more  the  form  of  thought  than 
space  is,  since  at  least  our  geometrical  concepts  are 
concepts  of  pure  space.  And  space  is  not  the  only 
form  of  perception,  since  our  extended  percepts  occupy 
time,  and  in  each  case  we  have  to  take  time  and  space 
together.  Nor  is  it  entirely  a  question  of  more  or  less, 
more  percept  to  space  in  less  time,  for  we  cannot,  con- 
versely, speak  of  less  concept  to  time  in  more  space, 
for  the  simple  reason  that  our  concepts  need  not  be 
concerned  with  space  at  all  and  there  will  be  no  equa- 
tion. 

And,  properly  speaking,  concepts  in  themselves  are 
timeless  and  spaceless.  Their  stuff  is  pure  thought 
and  their  habitation  is  the  mind.  Thus  they  will  be  as 
much  part  of  the  content  of  consciousness  as  our  per- 
cepts are;  only,  unlike  our  percepts,  they  belong  to 
that  region  of  mind  which  is  not  included  in  space- 
time,  and  therefore  we  are  not  aware  of  them  as  ex- 
tended in  space. 

But,  though  we  cannot  conceive  more  than  one  con- 
cept (whether  complex  or  simple)  at  a  time,  this  is 
only  true  of  primary  conception,  the  direct  presenta- 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       231 

tion  of  its  concepts  to  the  mind.  We  must  distinguish 
between  concepts  conceived  and  concepts  made  use  of. 
In  a  train  of  thought,  a  process  of  reasoning,  an  in- 
ference, a  judgment  involving  many  terms,  the  con- 
cepts do  not  constitute  a  one  to  one  instant  series,  but 
there  is  a  synthesis  such  that  each  concept  of  the  series 
is  caught  up  with  the  succeeding  one  and  all  with  the 
whole.  All  consecutive  thinking  is  of  this  type.  As 
the  separate  notes  are  built  up  into  the  musical  phrase, 
and  the  phrase  into  the  tune,  so  the  meaning  of  each 
separate  word  is  caught  up  with  the  meaning  of  the 
next,  they  and  all  successive  meanings  rolling  cumula- 
tively into  the  total  meaning  of  the  sentence.  Thus  the 
movement  of  thought  has  thickness,  it  is  three-dimen- 
sional in  time,  involving  memory  and  anticipation, 
past,  present  and  future;  it  is  a  perpetual  return  on 
itself  to  hold  the  meaning  which  is  past,  a  perpetual 
reaching  beyond  itself  to  the  meaning  just  ahead. 

But  this  is  not  primary  consciousness ;  it  is  not  even 
pure  conception;  it  is  secondary  consciousness,  the 
play  of  the  mind  over  and  round  about  the  solid  pri- 
mary block.  Our  entire  consciousness,  from  moment 
to  moment,  goes,  not  on  feet,  but  with  a  snake-like 
heaving  of  its  whole  body,  dragging  all  its  content,  pri- 
mary and  secondary,  along  with  it. 

Now  if  consciousness  were  what  the  realist  says  it 
is,  mere  compresence  with  objects  in  the  world  outside 
it,  we  could  hardly  account  for  this  cumulative  move- 
ment of  the  whole  block.  It  is  more  than  the  mere 
unminded  movement  of  time  in  space.  We  found  that 
time  was  in  itself  powerless  to  arrest  time,  and  that 
unminded  space  performed  this  function  most  inade- 
quately. Even  if  we  could  talk  about  simultaneous 
compresence  with  past  and  future  objects,  this  synthe- 
sis of  past,  present  and  future  goes  beyond  the  state 
of  compresence.    It  is  consciousness  doing  something, 


232  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

and  doing  something  to  the  object,  since  the  object  is 
lifted  up  bodily  out  of  its  past  into  the  present  and  car- 
ried on  into  the  future. 

If  realism  were  true  and  compresence  were  the  whole 
tale  of  consciousness,  our  consciousness  would  be  very 
different  from  what  it  is. 

iii 

Now  realists  may  admit  that  this  play  of  thought  is 
Con-  mental,  while  they  insist  that  it  is  a  playing  with  non- 
scious  mental  entities,  that  the  ultimate  elements  of  thought, 
and  the   the  categories,  are  non-mental. 

gories  B^t — even  supposing  that  mental  play  with  non-men- 
tal entities  were  possible — are  they?  Can  we  really 
think  of  the  ultimate  elements  of  thought,  the  cate- 
gories, as  non-mental?  Even  if  we  agreed  that  they 
were  ultimately  reducible  to  Space-Time,  we  should 
not  on  that  account  regard  them  as  non-mental  when 
we  had  reason  to  suppose  that  Space-Time  itself  is  not 
non-mental.  It  wouldn't  matter  to  idealism  if  every- 
thing in  the  universe  were  reduced  to  Space-Time,  so 
long  as  Space-Time  remained  the  ultimate  form  of 
consciousness. 

But  as  we  said,  many  of  the  categories:  Identity, 
Diversity  and  Existence ;  Relation ;  Universal  and  Par- 
ticular; Causality,  Change;  Number,  the  Whole;  the 
One  and  the  Many  were  not  reducible  to  Space-Time. 
Above  all.  Quality  was  not  reducible.  That  leaves 
nothing  for  Space-Time  but  Order,  Quantity,  Intensity, 
Motion,  and  such  identity  and  diversity,  such  relation, 
such  change  and  such  qualities  as  are  clearly  spatio- 
temporal. 

Are  the  categories,  then,  in  themselves,  apart  from 
the  mental  character  of  Space-Time,  reducible  to  terms 
of  mind  or  consciousness?  Not  to  such  terms  as  are 
implied  by  simply  saying  that  we  "know"  them — 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       233 

realism  has  the  most  perfect  right  to  protest  against 
these  definitions — but  to  terms  of  mind  which  will 
truly  define  their  nature?    I  believe  so. 

To  begin  with  Identity,  Diversity  and  Existence. 
These  categories  are,  I  think,  obviously  deducible  from 
or  reducible  to  the  concept  of  selfhood,  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  occupying  or  not  occupying  one 
point-instant  in  Space-Time. 

Each  thing  is  itself,  and  other  things  are  themselves 
as  well  as  ''other."  This  intrinsic,  irreducible  self- 
hood is  beneath  and  behind  all  consciousness,  and 
without  it  consciousness  could  not  be,  and  without  con- 
sciousness it  would  be  unintelligible.  If  we  say  with 
Professor  Alexander  that  things  are  identical,  or  the 
same,  because  they  occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same 
time,  and  different  if  they  occupy  different  spaces  at 
the  same  time,  we  have  yet  to  say  what  "the  same" 
time  and  ''the  same"  space  are,  as  well  as  to  provide 
for  those  things  which  continue  in  the  same  spaces  at 
different  times,  or  are  in  different  spaces  at  different 
times.  And  we  shall  have  to  say  what  "different" 
spaces  and  "different"  times  are.  So  that  we  are 
thrown  back  on  a  sameness  and  a  difference  which  are 
not  definable  in  terms  of  Space-Time  and  are  definable 
in  terms  of  consciousness,  being  of  the  stuff  of  con- 
sciousness itself.  Selfhood  is  the  fundamental  fact  of 
consciousness.  True,  that  in  the  dawn  of  our  experi- 
ence, we  begin  by  identifying  ourselves  with  our  bodies 
which  later  we  distinguish  from  surrounding  objects; 
thus,  for  infants  in  arms  identity,  diversity  and  exist- 
ence will  have  a  purely  spatio-temporal  reference ;  and 
if  philosophers  choose  to  adopt  the  metaphysical  views 
of  an  infant  in  arms  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  them. 
The  older  baby  knows  perfectly  well  that  it  is  not  its 
feeding  bottle  or  its  mother  or  its  nurse.  As  conscious- 
ness advances  the  self  is  clearly  distinguished  from  its 


234  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

body  and  conscious  states  from  bodily  states,  and  this 
self-reference,  this  assertion  of  selfhood  is  the  true 
metaphysical  ground  of  identity,  diversity  and  exist- 
ence. 

Existence  is  the  union  of  identity  and  diversity. 
Everything  that  exists  is  self  same  and  ditf erent  from 
others. 

And  Universality  is  strictly  deducible  from  Self- 
hood. The  Universal  is  that  which  is  one  and  the  same 
in  each  of  its  particulars.  Thus  it  is  repeated  in  Space- 
Time  ;  but  this  mere  fact  of  repetition  does  not  make  it 
spatio-temporal  and  quantitative.  The  very  essence 
of  universality  is  quality.  A  thing  has  such  and  such 
qualities  that  together  constitute  its  kind.  And  qual- 
ity we  found  to  be  irreducible  to  Space-Time.  Things 
which  have  the  same  qualities  and  correlations  of  qual- 
ities are  of  the  same  kind ;  and  the  essence  of  sameness 
we  found  to  be  selfhood. 

And  again,  the  thing  essential  to  the  universal  is  not 
repetition  but  recognition;  its  relation,  not  to  Space- 
Time  but  to  consciousness.  It  is  the  presence  of  the 
universal  in  the  particular  which  makes  knowledge, 
even  in  the  lowest  form  of  perceptual  experience,  pos- 
sible. 

The  universal  is  thought  itself  incarnate  in  things, 
the  chief  witness  to  their  mental  character. 

Now  we  cannot  draw  a  hard  and  fast  line  between 
the  universal  and  particular.  Universal  and  particu- 
lar are  in  the  same  boat.  If  the  particulars  are  non- 
mental  so  are  the  universals,  if  one  is  mental  both  are 
mental.  If  we  have  reason  to  suppose  that  universals 
are  supremely  mental,  particulars  must  be  mental  too. 
And,  obviously,  the  individual  will  share  their  char- 
acter. 

I  said  a  little  while  back  that  the  highest  universal 
is  consciousness  itself.     But  if  the  deduction  of  the 


VI         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       235 

categories  from  consciousness  is  sound,  the  highest 
universal  will  be  the  univeral  consciousness,  the  abso- 
lute Self. 

So  far,  our  idealist's  career  among  the  categories 
has  been  a  fairly  easy  one.  And  according  to  the  older 
tradition  of  idealism  he  should  have  no  trouble  at  all 
with  the  category  of  Relation.  The  older  idealism  re- 
garded all  relations  as  thought-relations  and  left  it  at 
that.  Now,  clearly,  they  are  not  sensa,  you  can't  see 
or  touch  or  smell  a  relation  as  such ;  and  this  peculiar 
impalpability  of  relations  seemed  to  set  them  apart  as 
holy  and  dedicated  to  idealism.  To  be,  is,  as  Lotze 
said,  to  be  in  relations;  and  since  all  relations  were 
supplied  by  consciousness,  clearly  to  be  in  relation  was 
to  be  in  consciousness.  To  be  was  to  be  related,  and  to 
be  related  was,  ipso  facto,  to  be  known. 

To  the  older  idealism,  the  universe  appeared  as  a 
collection  of  patches  of  colour,  scattered  sounds,  wan- 
dering smells,  of  hard  nubbly  things  tied  together  by 
invisible,  intangible  strings.  The  tighter  you  tied  it  to 
its  terms  the  more  impalpable  and  elusive  the  relation 
became,  until  for  sheer  subtlety  it  vanished  into 
nothingness. 

And  if  one  thing  seemed  more  certain  than  another 
it  was  that  relations  were  not  real  in  the  realist 's  sense, 
but  that  they  were  "the  work  of  thought."  The  older, 
logical  idealism  blinded  itself  to  all  other  possibilities 
by  concentrating  on  relations  which  were  indubitably 
thought-relations:  the  subject-object  relation,  the  sub- 
ject-predicate relation,  relations  between  categories 
and  concepts,  and  relations  between  relations  them- 
selves, not  anticipating  the  moment  when  all  relations 
should  be  declared  reducible  without  residue  to  Space- 
Time.  Thus,  by  ignoring  such  humbler  forms  as  ''be- 
side," "between,"  "to  right  and  left  of,"  "north-east 
by  east  of,"  "husband  and  wife,"  it  gave  an  impres- 


236  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

sion  of  having  snared  the  entire  universe  in  a  net  of 
logic.  It  was  left  for  the  realists  of  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury, notably  for  Mr.  Bertrand  Russell,  to  insist  on 
the  importance  of  these  entities,  so  palpably  independ- 
ent of  thought,  and  ask  the  idealist  what  he  was  going 
to  do  about  it. 

Now  so  long  as  the  idealist  confines  himself  to  logic, 
so  long  as  he  regards  Space  and  Time  as  mere  cate- 
gories, forms  of  thought  like  any  other,  there  is 
nothing  that  he  can  do.  Almost  any  relation  he  hap- 
pens to  hit  on,  the  relation  of  his  luncheon  to  his  din- 
ner, of  his  stud  to  his  shirt  front,  of  his  cat  and  her 
kittens,  of  himself  to  his  deceased  wife's  sister,  will, 
if  he  lets  himself  dwell  on  it,  be  a  crux  to  him.  His 
system  does  not  allow  for  those  irrational  sense  ele- 
ments which  are  the  terms  of  half  the  relations  there 
are.  Simply  saying  that  the  tenns  are  things  of  sense 
and  the  relations  things  of  thought  will  not  help  him 
with  the  relation  of  his  stud  to  his  shirt-front.  It  is 
a  relation  of  fastening,  and  you  cannot  say  that  fasten- 
ing is  a  thought-relation.  And  an  enormous  propor- 
tion, perhaps  the  greater  proportion,  of  relations  are 
of  this  transitive  and  practical  nature.  They  have  to 
do  with  action  and  behaviour.  If  he  is  going  to  hang 
on  to  his  epistemology  like  grim  death,  his  only  chance 
is  either  to  draw  a  distinction  between  fastening  and 
the  relation  of  fastening,  or  to  deny  that  fastening  is 
a  relation.  And  I  think  he  will  have  difficulty  in  mak- 
ing a  sound  case  either  way. 

Therefore  the  only  safe  course  for  the  idealist  is  to 
abandon  the  epistemological  account  of  experience  as 
an  exhaustive  statement,  and  take  his  stand  by  the 
primary  block  of  consciousness,  which  will  be  very 
largely  a  complex  of  sense-data  in  space  and  time,  in 
which  relations  may  be  impalpable  concepts,  but  are 
more  likely  than  not  to  share  the  perceptual  character 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        237 

of  their  terms.  The  very  worst  that  realism  can  do  to 
him  is  to  confront  him  with  relations  which  are  purely 
spatio-temporal;  but  this  will  not  hurt  him,  since  he 
has  already  settled  his  account  with  Space  and  Time. 

This  brings  us  to  the  contentious  question  of  exter- 
nal versus  internal  relations :  whether  relations  are  or 
are  not  "grounded  in  the  nature  of  their  terms."  Mr. 
Bradley  has  suflQciently  exposed  the  dilemmas  of  rela- 
tions.^ If  a  relation  is  outside  its  terms  it  will  have  to 
be  related  to  each  of  them,  and  this  relation  will  be  re- 
lated, and  will  be  external  to  its  terms,  and  related  to 
each  of  them  in  an  infinite  outside  regress.  If  it  is  in- 
side the  nature  of  its  terms,  there  must  be  a  relation  of 
the  terms  to  their  nature,  which  itself  will  depend  upon 
the  nature  of  its  terms  and  set  up  a  relation  which  will 
depend  upon  the  nature — and  so  on  in  an  infinite  inside 
regress.  I  am  not  concerned  at  the  moment  with  Mr. 
Bradley's  dilemma.^  There  is  only  one  theory  of  rela- 
tion which  idealism  is  compelled  to  dismiss  as  unsound, 
the  realist  theory  of  external  relations.  If  the  rela- 
tion is  an  out  and  out  external  one,  a  non-mental  reality 
detached  from  its  terms,  so  far  from  relating  them  to 
each  oiner  it  will  have  first  to  be  related  to  each  of 
them,  thus  setting  up  the  infinite  regress  for  which  Mr. 
Bertrand  Russell  has  blamed  internal  relations. 

Now  it  is  not  the  absolute  idealist  who  is  hit  by  the 
infinite  regress.  He  positively  thrives,  like  Mr.  Brad- 
ley, on  the  dilemma.  But  the  infinite  regress  is  fatal 
to  the  realist.  If  his  relation  is  to  be  a  real  relation  of 
real  terms  it  must  relate,  and  it  must  do  it  at  once. 
And  that,  because  of  its  infinite  regress,  a  purely  ex- 
ternal relation  cannot  do. 

Equally,  for  any  idealism  which  believes  in  the  real- 

*  Appearance  and  Eeality,  pp.  25-34, 

=»  See  A  Defence  of  Idealism,  pp.  183,  184,  223,  238. 


238  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

ity  of  its  world,  relations  must  relate.  It  must  there- 
fore find  such  a  definition  of  the  relation  of  relation  to 
its  terms  as  will  exclude  the  infinite  inside  regress.  By 
hook  or  by  crook  the  relation  must  be  made  to  relate. 
And  this  is  not  to  be  done  by  calling  each  and  every 
relation  the  work  of  thought.  The  work  of  thought 
on  terms  which  are  not  thoughts  and  have  no  connec- 
tions in  the  world  of  thought  will  be  an  outside  rela- 
tion with  a  vengeance.  If  relation  is  to  relate  it  must 
be  immediate.  It  must  get  in  first  before  the  infinite 
regress  has  had  time  to  start.  "The  work  of  thought" 
is  not  a  wide  enough  description  of  relation.  "The 
work  of  consciousness"  is  too  wide.  That  is  to  say, 
every  relation  is  not  directly  the  "work"  even  of  pri- 
mary consciousness,  and  if  it  is  to  be  real,  if  it  is  really 
to  relate,  it  must  in  no  case  be  the  work  of  secondary 
consciousness.  It  must  not  be  the  mere  play  of  con- 
sciousness on  pre-existing  stuff.  The  relation  that  re- 
lates must  be  of  the  stuff  of  consciousness  itself ;  since 
all  things  are  of  that  stuff. 

The  terms  will,  on  the  theory,  be  of  that  stuff,  and 
you  must  look  for  the  relations  where  the  terms  are: 
if  in  space  and  time,  then  in  space  and  time ;  if  in  the 
world  of  thought,  then  in  the  world  of  thought ;  if  in  a 
mixed  world,  then  in  that  world  as  it  is  mixed. 

The  relation  can  then  be  grounded  securely  in  the 
nature  of  its  terms,  in  the  sense  that  the  terms  will 
"make  a  difference  to"  the  relation;  they  will  make  the 
relation  what  it  is.  Thus  the  stud  and  shirt  make  their 
fastening  what  it  is.  Other  terms,  a  button  and  button 
hole,  a  pair  of  apron  strings,  a  railway  coupling,  make 
other  relations  of  fastening  what  they  are.  The  fact 
that  there  are  other  "fastenings"  does  not  mean,  as 
the  realist  will  have  it,  that  the  relation  of  fastening 
is  external  to  the  stud  and  shirt.  We  are  only  con- 
sidering that  particular  kind  of  fastening. 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        239 

A  relation  may  of  course  be  so  slender  and  partial 
that  it  will  touch  its  terms  on  the  most  trivial  side  of 
their  nature :  all  casual,  temporary  relations  are  of  this 
sort.  The  realist  makes  out  that  all  these  are  external 
relations,  only  because  he  is  confusing  the  total  com- 
plex of  the  persons  or  the  things  concerned  with  those 
parts  of  them  which  enter  into  the  relation.  The  parts, 
however  slender,  are  all  that  can  be  justifiably  called 
the  terms;  and  the  relation,  while  and  as  it  lasts,  will' 
be  grounded  in  their  nature. 

In  all  experience  of  relations — and  by  experience  1 
do  not  mean  external  knowledge;  for  example,  the 
knowledge  a  physicist  has  when  dealing  with  the  rela- 
tions of  his  subject  matter;  so  let  us  say  in  all  events 
into  which  primary  consciousness  enters,  conscious- 
ness pins  down  the  relation  to  its  terms  before  the  in- 
finite regress  can  set  in.  The  infinite  regress  is  always 
an  affair  of  secondary  consciousness.  So  long  as  we 
take  relation  as  an  abstraction  from  the  content  of  pri- 
mary consciousness,  the  dilemmas  of  relation  will  arise. 
They  are  solved,  as  the  dilemmas  of  Space  and  Time 
were  solved,  by  taking  relation  and  consciousness  to- 
gether. 

Order  we  have  already  admitted  to  be  spatio-tem- 
poral, at  least  in  origin.  But  it  is  not  on  that  account 
non-mental. 

Quantity  also,  but  not  all  quantity,  and  not  all  in- 
tensity; for  intensities  of  sensation  are  not  in  them- 
selves reducible  to  Space-Time :  even  if  degrees  of  heat 
can  be  measured  by  points  on  the  thermometer. 

And  quantity  in  the  form  of  Number  is  not,  I  think, 
reducible  at  all.  Neither  are  relations  of  number.  For 
example,  the  relation  of  a  square  to  its  root  is  not 
spatio-temporal;  nor  are  the  purely  numerical  rela- 
tions of  measure,  which  would  seem  to  rule  number  it- 
self out  of  space  and  time.    We  can  only  dream  of  in- 


240  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

eluding  it  if  we  confuse  between  real  and  psychological 
derivations  (the  ways  in  which  we  learn  to  count  may 
be  purely  spatio-temporal),  or  between  the  behaviour 
of  numbers  themselves  and  the  application  we  make 
of  them,  as  in  measuring. 

Number  is  pure  thought;  all  numerical,  all  mathe- 
matical laws  and  operations  are  laws  and  operations 
of  pure  thought ;  all  geometrical  constructions  are  con- 
structions of  pure  thought.  The  fact  that  they  are  ap- 
plicable to  things  of  sense  in  Space-Time,  that  things 
in  Space-Time  are  measurable  and  calculable,  would 
in  itself  be  sufficient  indication  that  nature  is  not 
'* closed  to  mind,"  but  that  thought  saturates  it 
through  and  through. 

We  found  that  Substance  taken  as  Space-Time  broke 
up  into  its  parts  and  was  lost,  giving  rise  to  Kant's 
antinomy.  Unminded  substance  could  neither  support 
its  parts,  nor  hold  them  together,  nor  maintain  itself. 
But  substance  taken  together  with  consciousness 
merges  in  the  concept  of  Selfhood.  The  Self  is  not  lost 
in  its  states  of  mind  or  states  of  will ;  it  stands  tmder 
them,  holds  them  up  and  together,  and  gives  them  con- 
tinuity. 

Unminded  Causality,  in  giving  rise  to  unminded 
change,  suffers,  like  change  itself,  from  all  the  disin- 
tegrations of  Space-Time.  It  can  only  preserve  its 
continuity,  its  power  to  pass  into  its  effect,  as  part  of 
the  movement  of  some  ultimate  primary  consciousness. 
Taken  together  with  consciousness,  the  concept  of  caus- 
ality as  the  "total  configuration  of  the  universe"  be- 
comes intelligible.  Space-Time  could  not  give  it  this 
configuration,  for  Space-Time  is  not  in  itself  the 
Whole ;  it  has  no  grip  of  its  own  past  and  future.  It 
may  be  objected  that  the  concept  of  causality  is  not 
exhausted  by  the  definition  of  total  configuration.  It 
cannot  be  less  than  that,  but  it  is  something  more;  it 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        241 

is  that  which  from  moment  to  moment  makes  a  differ- 
ence to  the  Whole.  Thus  causality  is  process.  But 
process  as  such  disappears,  like  power  and  necessity, 
in  the  total  config-uration  of  the  universe.  And  this 
is  the  contradiction  of  causality. 

Now,  if  we  had  nothing  but  unminded  causality  in 
an  unminded  universe,  we  should  have  to  choose  be- 
tween configuration  and  process,  or  put  up  with  the 
contradiction. 

The  clue  to  the  problem,  I  think,  lies  in  the  double 
aspect  of  mind.  Mind  is  consciousness,  and  it  is  also 
will.  In  its  more  perfect  forms  it  is  conscious  of  its 
will.  In  its  form  of  highest  perfection,  it  wills  its  con- 
sciousness which  is  the  universe.  Will  is  pure  causal- 
ity; it  is  pure  process;  it  is  the  universe  of  conscious- 
ness in  the  making.  It  is  not  subject  to  Space-Time, 
for  Space-Time  is  a  form  of  the  consciousness  it  has 
created.  It  moves  in  the  world  freely  among  its  own 
forms.  Freely,  because  its  own  forms  are  its  condi- 
tions. In  this  sense  the  cause  is  the  sum  of  the  condi- 
tions. It  is  its  conditions,  for  it  is  subject  to  none  that 
it  has  not  itself  imposed.  And  in  this  sense  causality 
which  is  process,  may  be  said  without  contradiction  to 
be  also  the  total  configuration  of  the  universe.  For  the 
total  configuration  of  the  universe  is  nothing  but  mind, 
the  mainspring  of  whose  unfolding  consciousness  is 
will.  Mind  is  the  only  entity  capable  of  literally  con- 
taining its  own  process ;  of  being  at  once  process  and 
total  configuration. 

A  moment's  reflection  will  show  the  possibility  of 
this  apparent  paradox.  It  is  more  or  less  to  be  found 
in  the  experience  of  any  finite  consciousness  that  not 
only  anticipates  but  has  power,  within  limits,  to  shape 
its  own  future,  that,  in  remembering,  from  moment  to 
moment  rolls  up  its  past  into  its  present  and  perpetu- 
ally covers  the  process  of  its  will. 


242  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

And  what  applied  to  causality  applies  to  Eeciprocity, 
too. 

We  have  seen  already  that  the  Whole  as  Space-Time 
fell  asunder,  like  Substance,  into  its  parts.  Here  again, 
ultimate  consciousness  is  the  only  Whole  that  can  main- 
tain itself  in  unity  with  all  its  parts.  It  will  not  be  a 
logical  Whole,  as  the  older  idealism  had  it ;  for  will  and 
all  sense  elements  stand  outside  that  Whole.  But  it 
makes  possible  (and  Space-Time  does  not)  the  exist- 
ence of  logical  wholes  as  subordinate  entities  within 
itself. 

The  same  consideration  applies  to  the  absolute  One 
which  is  and  contains  the  Many.  Conscious  Spirit  is 
the  only  conceivable  absolute  One.  If  the  many  forms 
of  the  universe  are  not  forms  of  the  consciousness  of 
absolute  Spirit,  they  must  fall  apart  into  the  endless 
plurality  and  absolute  difference  of  their  kinds;  in 
which  case  the  "kinds"  themselves,  and  all  subordinate 
unities  which  actually  obtain,  become  unthinkable. 

Motion  has  been  already  considered.  It  was  seen  to 
be  only  possible  when  "minded"  by  some  conscious- 
ness.^ 

We  have  done  with  all  the  categories  said  to  be  re- 
ducible to  Space-Time.  There  are  three  others :  Con- 
tingency; Modality  and  Necessity.  None  of  them  are 
strictly  spatio-temporal,  and  they  are  doubtful  cate- 
gories. Contingency  falls  under  the  head  of  Causality 
as  Condition.  Modality  is  a  compound  of  particularity 
and  quality.  Necessity,  dubious  in  itself,  is  another 
name  for  the  uniformity  of  nature,  which  if  it  is  not  a 
law  of  consciousness,  is  simply  an  empirical  fact,  carry- 
ing with  it  no  necessity. 

Quality  only  remains ;  and  it  remains  so  persistently 
outside  Space-Time  that  Professor  Alexander  will  not 

» See  above,  pp.  224-226. 


VI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        243 

allow  it  to  be  a  category.  It  seems  a  rather  high-mind- 
ed proceeding  thus  to  strip  it  of  its  ancient  prestige. 
Surely  Quality  is  a  good  enough  category  for  anybody, 
seeing  that,  except  bare  Being,  we  cannot  think  of  any- 
thing that  has  no  quality  at  all.  Even  pure  quantity, 
though  it  isn't  quality,  may  have  quality.  There  is  a 
certain  difference  of  flavour  about  finite  and  infinite 
numbers,  or  about  square  roots  and  cube-roots.  Qual- 
ity saturates  all  the  things  of  consciousness.  It  is  the 
name  for  all  the  charming  unreasonableness  of  nature, 
for  all  that  is  rich  and  mysterious  in  thought.  It  is 
essentially  primary. 

Its  mental  character  will  be  more  apparent  when  we 
come  to  consider  primary  consciousness. 


Ill 


Another  problem  of  Space-Time  has  arisen  with  the 
appearance  of  Professor  Einstein's  theory  of  Special  R^ 
and  General  Relativity. 

How  does  that  theory  affect  the  assumptions  and 
conclusions  of  idealism?    Does  it  make  for  idealism  or 

against  it? 

It  would  only  make  against  it  if  idealism  assumed  an 
absolute  Space-Time  which  is  the  same  for  all  observ- 
ers, that  is  to  say,  for  all  consciousnesses  under  all  pos- 
sible conditions ;  or  an  absolute  Time  which  is  the  same 
under  all  spatial  conditions. 

The  foregoing  chapters  were  written  before  I  had 
read  Professor  Wildon  Carr's  The  General  Principle 
of  Relativity,  and  I  am  glad  to  have  the  support  of  his 
authority  for  the  view— disgusting  to  realists— which 
I  have  taken  of  consciousness  as  the  continuum ;  and  I 
wish  that  he  had  developed  it  more  in  detail.  (It  is 
not  enough  to  state  that  consciousness  is  the  continuum 
unless  you  show  precisely  how  it  is  the  continuum  and 


244  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vi 

why.)  I  cannot,  however,  agree  with  Professor  Carr 
that  Kelativity  makes  directly  for  idealism.  So  far  as 
I  understand  Professor  Einstein's  theory — and  Pro- 
fessor Einstein's  equations  are,  I  regret  to  say,  a  bar 
to  perfect  understanding — all  that  it  undertakes  to 
prove  is  that  Time  (and  motion  with  Time)  is  relative 
strictly  to  position  in  Space.  And  that  the  size  and 
shape  of  objects,  so  far  as  they  depend  on  motion,  and 
mass  so  far  as  it  depends  on  motion  will  be  relative  too. 
I  gather  also  that  the  age  of  an  object,  its  duration  in 
space-time,  will  depend  on  its  velocity,  the  pace  at 
which  it  goes  through  Space-Time,  and  be  relative  to 
the  ages  of  other  objects  which  have  not  gone  the  pace. 
Space-Time  and  motion  through  Space  and  in  Time 
will  not  be  independent  entities ;  that  is  to  say,  they  can 
only  exist  in  relation  to  a  "body  of  reference,"  and  in 
the  absence  of  a  fixed  body  of  reference  real^  absolute 
time,  and  real,  absolute  space  there  will  be  none. 

Thus  we  hear  a  great  deal  about  time-systems  and 
bodies  of  reference.  But  Professor  Einstein  doesn't 
say  a  word  about  minds  of  reference ;  and  if  a  realist 
chooses  to  insist  that  there  is  nothing  here  but  the  ec- 
centricities of  unminded  Space-Time  it  would  be  hard 
to  refute  him  out  of  Professor  Einstein's  mouth  alone. 
Professor  Einstein  is  concerned,  not  with  space-time 
systems  as  occupying  his  observer 's  consciousness,  but 
with  his  observer's  body  as  occupying  certain  posi- 
tions in  a  space-time  system. 

All  the  same,  there  is  nothing  in  his  theory  which  can 
be  used  as  a  refutation  of  idealism.  For  idealism  each 
** observer"  will  carry  with  him  his  own  space-time  sys- 
tem based  on  his  personal  perspective ;  his  body  of  ref- 
erence will  itself  be  part  and  parcel  of  his  conscious- 
ness ;  and  his  consciousness  will  only  not  appear  in  the 
equation  because  it  already  contains  the  equation  and 
its  terms. 


VI         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       245 

I  think  there  is  nothing  in  the  Relativity  theory  that 
upsets  this  view.  And  incidentally  this  view  supports 
the  Relativity  theory  which  involves  a  plurality  of 
space-time  systems.  For  according  to  idealism  there 
will  be  as  many  space-time  systems  as  there  are  con- 
sciousnesses, as  many  forms  of  space-time  as  there  are 
forms  of  consciousness. 


of  Con 
scious- 
ness 


Vll 

SPACE,  TIME  AND  OTHER  CONSCIOUSNESSES 


We  can  at  least  conceive  the  possibility  of  other 
Forms  forms  of  consciousness  :  1.  Forms  in  which  both  mem- 
ory and  anticipation  are  complete  here  and  now,  all 
space  being  known  at  an  instant  and  all  time  at  a  point. 
2.  Forms  in  which  memory  is  more  extensive  than  our 
own ;  3.  in  which  memory  completes  itself  by  going  back 
over  the  whole  past  of  the  universe.  4.  Forms  in  which 
anticipation  is  more  extensive  than  our  own;  5.  in 
which  it  will  complete  itself  by  going  forward  over  the 
whole  future  of  the  universe.  6.  Forms  in  which  the 
same  event  will  be  happening  for  dilTerent  observers 
at  different  times.  7.  Forms  in  which  the  time  series 
is  reversible.  8.  Many  dimensional  forms.  9.  Forms 
in  which  points  in  space  are  reached  without  passing 
through  intermediate  space,  10.  or  in  which  bodies  can 
occupy  each  other's  space.  11.  Or  in  which  one  time 
system  is  contained  in  another.  12.  Forms  correlated 
with  other  space-time  systems.  13.  Forms  in  which 
all  space-time  systems  are  correlated  with  each  other. 

The  first  and  last  forms,  consciousness  of  all  space 
at  an  instant  and  all  time  at  a  point,  and  consciousness 
embracing  and  correlating  all  space-time  systems,  are, 
if  they  exist  at  all,  forms  of  the  ultimate  consciousness 
which  is  God. 

Memory  itself  helps  us  to  the  second  and  third  con- 
ceptions. The  phenomena  of  premonition  and  tecond 
sight  suggest  the  fourth  and  fifth. 

246 


VII         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       247 

A  typical  instance  of  the  sixth  form  would  be  Pro- 
fessor Alexander's  ** event  in  Sirius"  ^  which  has  actu- 
ally occurred  nine  years  before  the  inhabitants  of  the 
earth  are  aware  of  it.  You  can  of  course  say  that  a 
light  ray  starting  from  Sirius  is  not  the  same  event  as 
the  same  light  ray  reaching  the  earth,  that  we  have 
here  two  events  separated  by  nine  years.  But  this  is 
unfair  to  the  integrity  of  the  ray  and  to  its  course 
through  heaven,  which  is  already  broken  into  as  many 
event-particles  as  there  are  point  instants  on  its  track. 
And  supposing  the  star  to  have  gone  out  any  time  with- 
in the  last  nine  years,  for  a  perception  that  responded 
to  light  faster  than  light  can  travel  Sirius  would  be  no 
longer  seen,  while  he  would  still  be  twinkling  away  for 
other  people.  And  we  can  imagine  a  form  of  con- 
sciousness entirely  concerned  with  such  events. 

ii 

The  seventh  case,  the  reversible  time  series,  is  no 
more  than  an  interesting  speculation.-    It  is  thinkable  Revers- 
only  if  we  take  time,  either  in  stratified  blocks  of  dura-  ^ime 
tion,  or  in  its  literal  sense  of  successiveness  as  a  simple  series 
cardinal  series  of  instants.     That  is  to  say  the  series 
5,4,3,2,1,  is  as  thinkable  as  the  series  1,2,3,4,5 ;  but  even 
here,  where  we  are  dealing  with  instants  which  have  all 
a  similar  content,  the  figures  have  not  the  same  value, 
and  we  have  more  than  a  simple  reversal  of  order. 
That  is  to  say,  5  with  4,3,2,  and  1  in  front  of  it  is  a  dif- 
ferent complex  from  1  with  2,3,4,  and  5  in  front  of  it. 
And  when  we  come  to  complex  qualities  and  events, 
their  series,  if  taken  in  point-instants  or  event-par- 
ticles, ceases  to  be  reversible  at  all.    I  can  take  up  one 
event  in  a  solid  block  and  place  it  in  time  before  another 

^  See  Appendix  III,  p.  317. 

'See  7s  the  Time  Series  Irreversible,  by  Dean  Inge.     "Proceedings  of 
the  Aristotelian  Society,"  Vol.  XX. 


248  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vn 

solid  block  of  event  that  comes  after  it;  but  I  cannot 
transpose  their  event-particles  and  at  the  same  time 
preserve  the  integrity  of  the  events. 

That  is  to  say,  I  cannot  reverse  the  order  of  move- 
ments within  events  without  changing  their  complex 
and  their  character. 

For  example,  I  cross  my  room  from  the  fireplace  to 
the  writing-table,  passing  on  my  right  three  book- 
cases, a  door,  and  a  chair.  Strictly  speaking,  to  re- 
verse the  order  of  this  series  I  should  have  to  walk 
backwards,  so  that  I  may  pass  these  objects  in  the 
reverse  right  hand  order  of  chair,  door,  and  bookcase, 
and  keeping  the  fireplace  behind  me ;  for  the  fireplace, 
since  I  turned  my  back  on  it  at  starting,  does  not  be- 
long to  the  visual  series.  I  cannot  separate  my  move- 
ments from  my  surroundings  in  time  and  space,  and 
if  I  turn  round  and  walk  forwards  I  shall  face  the  fire- 
place, and  have  the  chair,  the  door,  and  the  bookcase 
on  my  left.  But  even  so,  I  have  not  got  a  complete 
reversal,  that  is  to  say,  the  same  movements  in  a 
different  order ;  for  walking  backwards  is  not  walking 
forwards. 

I  can,  however,  take  my  events  in  solid  blocks  and 
reverse  their  order.  I  can  go  to  bed  at  eight  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  dine  at  one  o'clock,  lunch  at  eight  in 
the  evening,  and  breakfast  at  ten.  But  if  I  reverse  the 
order  of  event-particles,  the  order  of  my  knife  and 
fork  work,  and  of  my  throat  movements,  whatever  I 
may  be  doing,  I  shall  not  be  dining.  So  that,  whether 
we  can  or  can  not  make  the  pure  time  series  stand  on 
its  head,  the  complete  order  of  events  in  time  is  ir- 
reversible. It  is  strictly  determined  by  the  correla- 
tions of  time  with  space. 

The  same  is  to  be  said  of  memory  and  anticipation. 
Every  time  we  remember  or  foresee  we  are  reversing 
some  order  of  events ;  we  are  putting  a  past  event,  or 


VII         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       249 

train  of  events,  after  the  events  which  have  followed  it, 
or  a  future  event,  or  train  of  events,  before  the  events 
which  should  precede  it.  But  we  do  not  remember  or 
foresee  event-particles  or  the  train  of  events  in  their 
reverse  orders.  The  remembered  or  foreseen  events 
have  their  own  irreversible  past,  present  and  future. 
And  the  time  we  foresee  or  remember  them  in  is  our 
present. 

iii 

The  eighth  form,  of  many  dimensional  consciousness, 
is  conceivable  so  far  as  the  construction  of  the  Fourth  Tte 
Dimension  is  conceivable.    We  cannot  form  any  com-  Jj^. 
plete  spatial  image  of  four  dimensional  figures ;  but,  sion 
even  without  helping  ourselves  to  Time  for  the  fourth 
dimension,  we  can  make  a  pretty  fair  intellectual  shot 
at  it,  by  analogy  with  our  constructions  of  the  second 
dimension  from  the  first,  and  of  the  third  from  the 
second.^ 

Thus:  The  line,  turned  on  its  end-points  at  right 
angles  to  itself,  forms  the  plane  surface  square  whose 
boundaries  are  lines.  The  plane  square,  turned  on  its 
bounding  lines  at  right  angles  to  its  four  sides,  forms 
the  cube  whose  boundaries  are  plane  surfaces.  By 
analogy  the  cube,  turned  on  its  bounding  surfaces  at 
right  angles  to  its  six  sides,  will  form  the  fourth 
dimensional  figure,  or  tessaract,  whose  boundaries  are 
cubes. 

The  time  factor  is  important,  if  we  are  to  realise  the 
possibility  of  this  construction.     Thus: 

Suppose  a  creature  whose  perceptions  were  limited 
to  one  dimension.  If  a  line  were  superimposed  on  his 
space  he  would  see  nothing.  The  points  of  the  new 
line  would  have  no  duration  in  his  space.     But  a  red 

^  See  The  Fourth  Dimension,  by  C.  H.  Hinton.    Also  Flatland,  by  Dr. 
E.  A.  Abbott. 


250  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vii 

line  a  foot  long,  moving  in  the  second  dimension  across 
his  space  at  the  rate  of  one  second  per  foot,  would  be 
seen  as  a  red  point  that  lasted  one  second.  The  dura- 
tion of  the  red  point  would  be  the  queer  part  of  it,  a 
sign  that  it  had  come  into  his  space  from  a  higher 
dimension,  an  unknown  and  inconceivable  direction. 

Again,  suppose  a  two-dimensional  creature  with  per- 
ceptions limited  to  plane  surfaces.  If  an  uncoloured 
plane  square  were  laid  down  in  his  space,  its  boun- 
daries and  parts  would  have  no  duration  in  any  point 
they  covered.  The  two  surfaces,  having  no  thickness, 
would  be  perceived  as  one ;  there  would  be  no  pattern 
on  his  carpet.  And  suppose  a  red  vertical  plane  set 
up  at  right  angles  to  his  horizon  and  moving  across 
it,  he  would  see  a  succession  of  instantaneous  red 
points  (each  the  end-point  of  the  base  line  of  the  ver- 
tical plane)  popping  up,  one  after  another,  on  his 
horizon  line,  but  without  duration. 

But  if  a  red  cube  a  foot  square  rose  in  the  third 
dimension  like  a  sun  above  his  horizon,  at  the  rate  of 
one  second  per  foot,  he  would  see  a  red  line  a  foot  long 
that  lasted  exactly  one  second.  Its  lasting  would  seem 
to  him  most  uncanny,  and  if  he  were  clever  enough  he 
would  infer  a  third  dimension. 

Similarly,  a  tessaract,  passing  at  the  same  rate 
through  three-dimensional  space,  would  be  seen  by 
three  dimensional  creatures  as  a  square  surface  last- 
ing, uncannily,  just  so  many  seconds  longer  than  the 
plane  surface  of  a  passing  cube  as  the  tessaract  has 
more  sides  than  a  cube.  Or  rather,  all  its  three-dimen- 
sional parts  would  be  seen  moving,  while  the  fourth 
dimensional  side  would  be  stationary  so  many  seconds. 
A  phenomenon  that  would  certainly  attract  atten- 
tion.^ 

'  See  Appendix  IV,  p.  318. 


vn        RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       251 


IV 


With  forms  nine,  ten  and  eleven  we  are  already  in 
some  degree  acquainted.  Dream 

In  our  Dream  Space  we  go  from  point  to  distant  ^^^ 
point    without    traversing    intermediate    space.     Our 
bodies   pass   through   other   bodies    or   occupy   their 
spaces.    Our  Dream  Time  has  a  system  of  its  own. 

I  have  seen  no  adequate  explanation  of  the  fact  that 
a  train  of  dream  events,  which  may  take  any  dream 
time  from  nth  hours  to  one  minute,  will  happen  in  a 
few  seconds  by  clock  time.  You  are  not  explaining 
when  you  say  that  dream  events  and  dream  time  are 
illusory,  or  that  the  sense  of  dream  time  is  a  false 
memory  palmed  off  by  waking  consciousness  upon  the 
dream.  For  illusory  events,  like  real  events,  take  time. 
Everybody  knows  the  dream  of  dressing  for  a  party, 
of  opening  endless  cupboards  and  endless  drawers, 
turning  over  innumerable  garments,  rejected  for  some 
dream  reason,  and  finally  setting  out,  clothed  in  noth- 
ing but  a  simple  handkerchief.  In  the  dream  it  has 
taken  endless  time  to  find  that  handkerchief.  And 
time  taken  is  time  taken. 

As  for  false  memory,  how  can  you  possibly  remem- 
ber a  dream  you  haven't  had?  At  that  rate  all  our 
dreams  would  have  to  be  invented  in  the  first  moment 
after  waking,  whereas  we  are  very  well  aware  that 
waking  came  last  in  the  series  of  events.  If  we  re- 
member the  dream  then  we  have  had  the  dream.  More 
often  than  not  we  forget  the  dream  events  and  yet 
remember  that  they  took  time. 

The  question  is :  What  time  did  they  take  ? 

To  say  that  the  dream  series  is  rattled  off  with  an 
intense  velocity  may  possibly  help  to  fit  the  dream 
hours  into  the  clock  seconds;  but  the  velocity  itself 
would   constitute    a   unique   and   independent   dream 


252  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vn 

tempo.  And  the  velocity  theory  is  not  borne  out  by 
the  time  sense  of  the  dreamer,  which  stretches  out  the 
pace  of  events  to  normal.  The  only  short  cuts  of  the 
dream  are  the  movements  of  the  dream  body  in  dream 
space;  and  these  are  not  to  be  accounted  for  by  any 
waking  experience.  They  are  independent  and  unique. 
So  that  the  conclusion  would  seem  to  be  that  the  space- 
time  of  dreams  is  not  the  space-time  of  waking  life, 
but  a  unique  and  independent  system,  and  that  the 
time  that  dreams  take  is  their  own  time. 


The  twelfth  case  occurs  in  everyday  experience  when 
Personal  other  people's  personal  perspectives  are  recognised 
tivS^*^  and  correlated  with  our  own. 

But  if  we  have  given  up  the  external  non-mental 
object,  if  we  each  carry  about  with  us  our  own  private 
Space-Time,  in  what  sense  can  we  be  said  to  see  the 
same  objects  and  to  inhabit  the  same  world  as  other 
people?  What  sense  that  will  not  do  violence  to  our 
experience  ? 

Well,  in  the  first  place,  our  grounds  for  giving  up 
non-mental  space  and  time  were  that  their  non-mental- 
ity itself  did  violence.  And  it  will  be  remembered  that 
we  gave  up  the  non-mental  objects  because  of  the  in- 
compatibility of  their  many  appearances.  If  all  those 
appearances  are  to  be  outside  realities  their  incom- 
patibility becomes  a  downright  serious  thing.  So  does 
their  multiplicity.  We  saw  that  their  multiplicity  was 
too  much — in  1913 — for  even  so  devout  a  realist  as 
Professor  Broad.  If  they  are  relative  to  our  sense- 
organs  that  is  serious  too;  and  if  we  adopt  the  ''Gen- 
eral Principle  of  Relativity ' '  there  will  be  no  standard 
size,  shape,  mass,  movement  or  position  of  any  object. 
Discrepancies  will  be  infinite.     On  the  other  hand,  if 


VII        RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       253 

you  say  that  they  are  not  relative,  that  they  are  abso- 
lute, discrepancy  becomes  more  serious  still ;  and  any 
correlation  of  discrepancies  impossible.  Experience 
is  done  violence  to  either  way. 

But — it  may  be  objected — if  it  is  all  a  matter  of  dif- 
ferent sense-organs  and  different  perspectives,  why  do 
we  not  see  different  objects  in  different  worlds? 

Or,  if  my  space-time  is  my  private  affair  and  I  am 
confined  to  my  personal  perspectives,  how  can  I  be 
assured  of  other  people's  perspectives,  or  of  the  exist- 
ence of  other  people  at  all?  If  my  neighbour's  body 
is  a  phantom  wandering  about  in  my  space-time,  what 
guarantee  have  I  of  his  reality,  of  anybody's  reality 
except  my  own,  or  of  my  own  reality,  if  it  comes  to 
that?  For  there  will  not  be  any  reality  for  me  outside 
my  consciousness.  And  isn't  this  simply  ''subjective 
idealism,"  that  easy  prey  of  realists,  the  lunatic  theory 
of  Myself  Alone? 

Now,  it  is  chiefly  because  my  consciousness  has  the 
form  of  space-time  that  the  reality  of  other  conscious- 
nesses is  brought  home  to  me.  The  behaviour  of  other 
people  in  space-time  convinces  me  that  their  existence 
is  as  real,  as  self-contained  and  well-authenticated  as 
my  own.  Most  of  their  movements  in  my  space-time 
are  unforeseen  by  me,  all  are  independent  of  me,  and 
yet  so  strikingly  like  my  own  movements  that  I  am 
convinced  that  I  am  dealing  with  selves  as  free  and 
separate  from  my  self  as  my  self  is  from  theirs.  Their 
speech  further  persuades  me  that  they  are  conscious 
as  I  am  conscious,  yet  that  their  thoughts  are  not  of 
my  thinking;  that  each  has  a  secret  incommunicable 
self  that  does  not  come  into  my  consciousness,  yet 
whose  reality  I  cannot  doubt. 

It  would  still  be  open  to  me  to  question  these  signs 
and  regard  other  people  and  their  speech  and  their 
behaviour  as  illusions  of  my  solitary  dream.     But  they 


254  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vn 

have  every  appearance  of  carrying  about  with  them 
a  Space-Time  perspective  which  is  not  mine.  And  be- 
cause it  is  not  mine,  because  they  have  this  indubitable 
air  of  being  fellow  spectators  of  the  universe  and  of 
looking  at  the  universe  from  a  different  angle,  seeing 
a  world  that  runs  out  with  all  its  lines  from  a  different 
centre  from  mine ;  because  their  hypothetical  perspec- 
tives can  be  correlated  with  the  only  perspective  I  can 
be  certain  of,  therefore  I  conclude  that  other  people 
are  entities  as  real  as  I  am  in  a  world  as  real  as  my 
own. 

And  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  I  am  known  to 
them  precisely  as  they  are  known  to  me,  and  that  my 
body  is  a  phantom  wandering  about  in  their  space- 
time  as  theirs  wanders  in  mine. 

And  that  their  space-time  is  not  mine  I  also  know 
because  my  body  cannot  stand  where  their  bodies  are 
standing  at  the  same  moment.  I  can  only  see  the 
world  as  they  have  seen  it  if  I  stand  where  they  have 
been  standing.  We  shall  never  see  the  same  world 
at  the  same  time. 

But  in  what  sense  consistent  with  idealism  can  I  be 
said  to  stand  where  they  have  been  standing,  since,  on 
the  theory,  they  can  only  stand  in  their  own  space  and 
I  can  only  stand  in  mine?  And  in  what  sense  is  the 
world  they  saw  the  same  world  that  I  see,  since  our 
seeing  is  in  different  times  as  well  as  different  spaces  ? 

It  is  the  same  world,  no  less  and  no  more  and  in  the 
same  sense  that  the  house  I  see  a  mile  off  is  the  same 
house  I  see  near,  or  the  house  I  see  cornerways  the 
same  house  that  I  see  frontways.  No  less  the  same — 
and  no  more.  For  the  house  I  see  a  mile  off  is  a  very 
small  house,  and  the  house  I  see  near,  which  I  call  ''the 
same  house,"  is  a  large  one.  And  the  house  seen 
frontways  is  a  square  cube  and  seen  cornerways  is  a 
triangular  cube ;  and  I  have  to  correlate  my  own  per- 


VII         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        255 

spectives  with  each  other  very  much  as  I  correlate 
other  people's  with  my  own. 

How  is  this  possible? 

It  is  done  in  all  perceptual  experience  in  ways  of 
which  optics  give  the  correct  scientific  statement.  But 
they  do  not  profess  to  define  the  metaphysical  grounds 
of  the  process  or  the  ultimate  character  of  its  data. 
We  have  still  to  ask  how  is  the  correlation  of  perspec- 
tives thinkable? 

To  begin  with  we  have  to  think  of  our  personal 
space-times  and  the  personal  space-times  of  other 
people  as  "real"  (or  ideal)  parts  of  a  "real"  (or 
ideal)  space-time,  which,  if  it  is  to  hang  together,  must 
be  the  Space-Time  of  some  ultimate  consciousness. 
How  are  these  parts  to  be  fitted  in? 

The  house  I  see  a  mile  off  grows  larger  and  larger 
as  I  approach  it.  I  can  regard  all  my  views  of  the 
house  as  strung  like  so  many  concentric  rings  on  my 
line  of  vision  which  passes  like  an  axis  through  their 
common  centre ;  the  smaller  views  telescoping  into  the 
larger  as  the  line  shortens.  Besides  shortening,  this 
axis  will  swing  with  me  as  I  move  from  right  to  left 
of  the  object;  it  will  therefore  be  a  variable,  but  its 
end-point  in  the  common  centre  of  the  telescoping 
views  will  be  a  geometrical  constant  which  determines 
the  place  of  the  house  in  real  space-time,  the  space- 
time  of  which  my  own  personal  perspectives  are  parts. 
In  the  same  way  the  line  of  the  projecting  angle  of 
the  house  will  be  common  both  to  the  front  view  and 
the  comer  view.  It  is  a  real  (or  ideal)  line,  a  geo- 
metrical constant  of  the  two  perspectives,  and  fixes  the 
place  of  the  house  in  the  real  (or  ideal)  space-time  of 
the  ultimate  consciousness. 

And  in  the  same  way  my  neighbour's  perspectives 
can  be  correlated  with  mine. 

If  he  is  standing  close  beside  me  I  know  that  our 


256  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vii 

separate  axes  of  vision  will  meet  at  an  acute  angle  in 
the  centre  of  his  object,  and  if  we  are  further  apart, 
at  an  obtuser  angle.  If  he  takes  my  place  I  know  that 
his  axis  of  vision  will  swing  to  the  position  mine  occu- 
pied, that  it  will  lie  in  the  same  track  and  that  its  end- 
point  will  fix  his  object's  position  in  real  or  ideal  space. 
His  "standing  beside  me"  and  "taking  my  place" 
mean  that  his  position  and  mine  are  marked  in  real 
(or  ideal)  space,  and  that  we  are  beside  each  other,  or 
interchangeably,  there.  These  relations  will  hold  good 
also  in  our  private  spaces  because  these  are  parts  of 
real  (or  ideal)  space. 

Similarly,  if  he  takes  the  corner  of  the  house  while 
I  take  the  square,  the  line  of  the  projecting  angle  will 
be  common  to  our  two  perspectives  in  real  (or  ideal) 
space. 

The  same  thing  will  hold  good  for  our  times.  What 
is  a  time  for  his  space  will  be  the  same  time  for  my 
space,  so  long  as  our  spaces  are  correlated.  For 
idealism  this  means  that  all  personal  space  times 
are  embraced  in  the  Space-Time  of  the  ultimate  con- 
sciousness. 

I  have  taken  the  simplest  example  of  the  correlation* 
of  personal  perspectives,  the  simplest  of  geometrical 
constants.  In  reality  pure  Space  in  which  "God 
geometrizes  eternally"  is  filled  with  the  pure  geo- 
metrical figures  of  all  objects  of  all  possible  perspec- 
tives. They  are  outlines  which  the  individual  con- 
sciousness fills  with  the  hardness  or  softness,  the 
roughness  or  smoothness,  the  colour  and  richness  of 
its  own  sensa. 

If  this  were  all  there  would  be  nothing  to  distinguish 
them  from  Kant's  schema,  the  motionless,  ready-made 
framework  into  which  the  things  of  sense  fit  in  a  man- 
ner suggesting  that  they  are  already  provided  with 
shape,  size  and  position.    The  Kantian  schema  was 


VII         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        257 

only  applicable  to  static  objects ;  it  bad  no  bold  on  tbem 
as  tbe  nuclei  of  events  in  time.  Tbus  tbrougb  tbe 
cbangeless  crowding  of  tbe  Kantian  perspectives  in 
one  time,  tbere  would  be  overlapping  and  intersecting 
sucb  tbat  material  objects  would  be  infallibly  obliged 
to  occupy  eacb  otber's  spaces.  It  bad  all  tbe  awkward- 
ness of  tbe  realist's  multiplied  real  incompatible s.  But 
tbe  schema  we  are  contemplating  is  not  of  Space  but 
of  Space-Time.  Consciousness  in  its  form  of  Time 
divides  the  objects  witbin  tbese  personal  perspectives 
so  tbat  one  is  never  inconvenienced  by  tbe  otber. 

And  Kant's  schema  was  a  form  of  sensible  percep- 
tion; and  it  is  clear  tbat  sensible  perspectives  cannot 
have  any  points  or  lines  in  common,  because  tbese 
points  and  lines  are  tbe  points  and  lines  of  bodies 
wbicb  cannot  occupy  eacb  otber's  space.  But  tbe  geo- 
metrical patterns  of  tbe  geometrizing  God  are  pure 
intellectual  forms  tbat  know  notbing  of  tbe  jealous 
exclusions  and  mutual  bustlings  of  tbe  tbings  of  sense. 
Tbey  are  one  and  tbe  same  for  all  personal  perspec- 
tives by  whomsoever  perspected. 

At  the  same  time  they  must  not  be  thought  of  as 
marking  out  in  real-ideal  space  any  standard  shape  or 
size;  for  there  will  be  outlines  of  all  figures  of  all 
possible  perspectives.  Only  what  I  have  called  the 
geometrical  constants  will  be  common  to  any  two  or 
more  perspectives ;  and  what  is  a  constant  for  any  two 
or  three  perspectives  may  be  a  variable  for  a  fourth. 
For  example,  the  long,  steep  line  common  to  the  corner 
and  square  views  of  the  house,  will  be  shortened  in  tbe 
perspective  of  an  observer  posted  high  above  the  roof. 

So  far  we  have  been  considering  tbe  correlations  of 
perspectives  in  the  Space-Time  of  ultimate  conscious- 
ness as  conceived  by  a  finite  consciousness  limited  to 
its  own  personal  perspective.  If  we  ask  how  any  ob- 
ject in  Space-Time  appears  to  tbe  consciousness  which 


258  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vn 

embraces  all  Space-Time,  we  ignore  the  very  conditions 
of  the  problem.  The  ultimate  consciousness  is  neither 
in  the  garden  nor  posted  high  above  the  roof.  It  pre- 
sumably will  not  be  limited  by  relativity  to  a  sense- 
organ  or  by  position  of  a  body  in  space.  My  sensum  is 
for  all  I  know  my  private  affair,  and  I  have  no  business 
to  attribute  it  to  Deity  if  Deity  hasn  't  any  sense-organ 
to  correspond. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  do  not  know  the  part  actually 
played  by  a  sense-organ.  On  the  idealist  theory  the 
sensum  blue  is  not  generated  by  contact  of  a  sense- 
organ  with  light  waves  of  a  certain  length  and  rate  of 
vibration.  It  is  the  response  of  the  self  to  the  stimulus 
of  some  consciousness  "at  the  other  end,"  semaphor- 
ing by  means  of  molecules  in  motion.  The  sense-or- 
gans may  be  simply  sorters  out,  and  transmitters  of 
the  movements  of  molecules ;  not  generators,  but  canal- 
isers  (as  M.  Bergson  says)  of  sensation,  distributing 
God's  sensa,  holding  within  bounds  the  otherwise  in- 
tolerable inrush  of  divine  experience.^ 

But  supposing  that  an  object  in  finite  space-time 
appears  to  ultimate  consciousness  at  all  as  it  appears 
to  finite  consciousness,  we  may  presume  that  the  very 
least  that  ultimate  consciousness  can  do  will  be  to  see 
it,  not  from  any  one  perspective  but  from  all  possible 
perspectives  except  that  of  motion.  It  will  be  able 
to  see  it  all  round,  and  above  and  below,  and  outside 
and  inside  at  the  same  time. 

And  as  we  could  trace  the  beginning  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  all  space  at  a  moment  in  our  own  memory 
and  anticipation,  so  in  "visualising,"  when  we  are 
more  or  less  free  from  the  limitations  of  position,  we 
do  actually  see  all  round  an  object  and  inside  it  at 
once.  This  depends  upon  the  object.  Thus  there  is 
difficulty  in  imagining  the  complete  spherical  aspect  of 

*See  William  James,  On  Immorttblity. 


VII         RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        259 

a  monotonously  coloured  Association  football.  But  let 
the  object  be  large  and  let  its  four  sides  have  each 
some  vivid  distinguishing  mark,  and  the  thing  can  be 
done  easily  enough.  In  imagination  I  can  look  at  the 
front  and  the  back  of  my  house  at  once  and  through 
all  the  rooms  that  intervene.  Suppose  this  sort  of 
vision  carried  to  the  nth  power? 

If  the  universe  exists  solely  through  the  will  and  in 
the  mind  of  God,  his  consciousness  of  the  universe  will 
be  perfect  and  whole,  embracing  all  space-time  systems. 
But,  it  is  possible  that  he  is  not  really  conscious  of  the 
universe  in  any  way  even  remotely  like  our  own. 

In  the  last  chapter  but  one  we  shall  consider  what, 
on  the  theory,  his  way  must  be,  what  it  may  be,  and 
what  it  cannot  be. 


vin 

DIFFICULTIES  AND  OBJECTIONS 


I  said  Idealism  must  be  proof  against  all  attacks 
Tiie  based  on  the  behaviour  of  the  world  of  "physical" 
^,      things. 

The  challenge  to  the  idealist,  if  you  remember,  was 
to  frame  his  theory  so  that  its  terms  will  be  at  once 
a  better  description  and  a  better  explanation  of  the 
facts;  better  that  is  to  say,  than  realism's  account  of 
them.    To  quote  Professor  Broad  again: 

''Any  alternative  hypothesis  about  the  real  will  have  to  rest  its 
probability  entirely  on  its  ability  to  explain  the  perceived." 

The  implication  being  that  you  cannot  do  this  in 
terms  of  perception. 

The  idealist's  contention  is  that  you  cannot  do  this 
by  leaving  perception  out.  We  have  seen  what  difficul- 
ties and  contradictions  arise  from  the  realist  theory 
of  unminded  Space-Time,  unminded  categories,  un- 
minded  objects  and  events,  and  from  the  theory  of  the 
"real  counterpart."  We  found  that  the  facts  could 
be  so  re-stated  in  terms  of  consciousness  as  to  avoid 
these  difficulties  and  contradictions,  and  that,  so  far, 
idealism  offered  a  better  description  and  explanation. 

Yet  it  must  have  remained  apparent  that  idealism 
has  at  least  two  sides  open  to  attack :  one,  its  alleged 
fundamental  assumption  that  being  and  being  known 
are  the  same;  and  again,  the  relation  of  mind  to  its 
body,  the  plain  fact  that  consciousness  appears  to  be 
dependent  on  nerves  and  cerebral  cortex. 

260 


VIII       RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        261 

The  first  line  of  attack  is  based  on  the  self -evidence 
of  the  contrary.  Being  and  being  known  are  not  the 
same.  The  processes  of  the  cosmos  are  not  the  pro- 
cesses of  thought,  and  you  have  not  explained  anything 
when  you  have  said  that  somebody  knows  it.  Not  even 
when  you  have  said  that  God  knows  it. 

I  shall  take  up  this  objection  last,  for  the  defence 
will  rest  mainly  on  the  distinction  between  primary  and 
secondary  consciousness  which  will  be  dealt  with  in  the 
two  following  chapters.  Meanwhile  it  must  be  admitted 
that  the  crux  for  idealism  is  the  relation  between  mind 
and  body. 

ii 

Idealism  assumes  that  all  objects  of  perception,  to- 
gether with  their  spaces  and  their  times,  are  the  con- 
tent of  consciousness  and  dependent  on  it.  '^^ 

Now  the  body  is  an  object  of  consciousness.  To 
idealism  it  is  a  content  of  consciousness  and  dependent 
on  it.  But  in  actual  experience  consciousness  appears 
as  dependent  on  the  body.  No  sense-organ,  no  sensum. 
No  cerebral  cortex,  no  thought.  In  recent  experiments 
made  by  Dr.  Head,  the  correspondence  h'as  been  found 
to  be  so  close  that  certain  discriminations  between 
sensa,  between  degrees  in  the  same  kind  of  sensum, 
heat,  cold,  pain,  intensities  of  colour  and  sound,  taste 
and  smell,  certain  rejections  and  selections,  which  we 
might  suppose  to  be  the  work  of  consciousness,  are  in 
reality  performed  very  efficiently  by  the  sensory  nerves 
themselves.^  They  have  picked  out  their  sensa  even 
before  their  junction  at  the  synapses.  Similarly,  the 
synthesis  of  sensations  has  been  completed  at  the  syn- 
apses before  there  is  any  question  of  the  cerebral  cor- 
tex and  perception.  For  all  these  operations  the  help 
of  consciousness  is  not  needed.  The  appropriate  nerv- 
ous apparatus,  with  its  up  and  down  lines  and  its  junc- 

^ Studies  in  Neurology:    Sensation  and  the  Cerebral  Cortex. 


262  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  viii 

tions,  is  at  once  a  transport  system,  a  sorting  house  and 
clearing  station  of  sensations,  before  ever  the  ter- 
minus of  the  cortex  has  been  reached.  The  work  of 
consciousness  has  been  done  for  it;  everything  has 
been  accounted  for — except  consciousness  itself.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  but  take  a  back  seat  and  look  on  at 
the  spectacle  provided  for  it  by  the  sense-organs.^ 

At  first  sight  there  is  something  very  staggering  in 
this  discovery  of  Dr.  Head's.  And  yet  it  is  no  more 
than  might  be  expected  once  you  have  recognised  that 
there  is  correspondence  between  our  sensations  and 
the  neural  processes  in  our  bodies.  The  correspondence 
was  once  thought  to  be  general.  It  is  found  to  be  par- 
ticular, to  hold  good  of  the  minutest  differences,  that 
is  all.  There  is  no  more  difficulty  for  idealism  in  ad- 
mitting a  special  neural  process  for  a  special  intensity 
of  heat  or  pain,  than  in  admitting  different  neural 
processes  for  sound  and  colour.  The  trouble  is  having 
to  admit  a  correspondence  at  all,  if  that  correspondence 
is  to  he  interpreted  as  causal  connection.  If  conscious- 
ness of  things  is  caused  by  neural  process  then  con- 
sciousness is  dependent  on  neural  process,  and 
* '  things ' '  cannot  be  dependent  on  consciousness.  And 
if  consciousness  simply  looks  on  at  an  outside  spec- 
tacle, it  will  not  matter  to  it  a  rap  whether  that  spec- 
tacle is  provided  by  neural  processes,  by  the  direct 
behaviour  of  the  things,  or  by  the  behaviour  of  the 
things  and  neural  processes  combined.  So  that  at 
first  sight  the  realist  seems  safe  and  the  idealist  very 
badly  hit. 

But  if  the  objection  is  to  hurt,  it  must  assume,  not 
only  that  the  correspondence  is  a  causal  one,  but  that 
the  idealist  supposes  the  dependence  of  content  upon 
consciousness  to  be  a  causal  dependence  too,  when  the 
idealist  position  will  be  this :    Consciousness  is  an  effect 

*  Studies  in  Neurology :  Sensation  and  the  Cerebral  Cortex. 


vm        RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        263 

whose  cause  is  change  in  a  body  whose  cause  is  con- 
sciousness. Thus  we  have  a  vicious  circle.  Mind  is 
both  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  its  own  body. 

Now  the  consciousness  we  are  considering  as  linked 
up  with  bodily  processes  is  a  purely  finite  conscious- 
ness, a  consciousness  limited  to  a  certain  kind  and  order 
of  experience  in  which  bodily  states  play  an  exceedingly 
important  part.  That  experience,  therefore,  will  in- 
clude bodily  states  as  part  of  the  content  of  conscious- 
ness. Idealism  regards  this  role  of  the  body  as  played 
within  mind  in  the  mind's  own  theatre  of  space  and 
time.  It  may  even  regard  the  body  as  being  built  up, 
cell  by  cell,  by  the  psyche,  for  its  own  purposes,  ac- 
cording to  its  need.  But,  in  the  first  place,  it  does  not 
regard  the  finite  self  as  the  ultimate  cause  of  its  own 
consciousness.  To  idealism  the  body  is  nothing  but  a 
complex  of  sensa  like  other  sensa  in  finite  conscious- 
ness; but  finite  consciousness  itself  is  not  the  cause 
of  its  appearance  there.  And  if  there  is  no  causal  de- 
pendence of  the  body  on  finite  consciousness  there  is 
no  vicious  circle. 

But  neither  is  the  body  the  cause  of  consciousness. 
On  any  theory  it  is  not  possible  to  show  any  causal 
connection  between  the  sensa  and  the  motions  of  ex- 
ternal molecules;  or  between  neural  processes  inside 
the  body  and  the  sensum  or  percept  outside  it ;  or  be- 
tween percept  and  perceiving  subject.  Much  less  be- 
tween molecules  and  mind.  Dr.  Head's  experiments 
still  leave  it  clear,  as  he  tells  us,  plainly  that  the  act 
of  sensing  is  not  neural  but  psychic.^  What  is  more, 
neither  external  molecular  motion,  nor  neural  pro- 
cesses— and  these  are  all  the  physical  factors  which  can 
conceivably  be  concerned  in  the  result — are  ever  in 
consciousness  at  all.  So  that  even  if  a  causal  connec- 
tion existed  one  way  or  other,  finite  consciousness  is 

^  See  Appendix  V,  p.  319. 


264  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vm 

not  being  invited  to  swallow  up  its  own  origin,  or  serve 
both  as  the  cause  and  the  effect  of  itself. 

And  the  crux  of  idealism  reduces  itself  to  this :  The 
sense-organs  and  their  neural  processes  are  ''in"  the 
body  which  is  "  in "  space-time  which  is  " in"  conscious- 
ness, yet  their  presence  or  their  absence  makes  such  a 
difference  to  consciousness  that  without  them  con- 
sciousness, as  we  know  it,  cannot  be. 

Can  idealism  describe  or  explain  this  relation  in 
terms  which  will  not  do  violence  either  to  itself  or  to 
the  facts? 

The  problem  is  still  difficult  enough  in  all  conscience, 
even  if  much  of  the  difficulty  disappears  when  it  is 
agreed  that  the  relation  is  not  causal.  The  theory  of 
psycho-physical  parallelism  expressly  states  that  the 
relation  is  not  causal,  that  there  is  no  bridge  from 
one  parallel  line  to  the  other.  It  leaves  its  parallels 
running  till  the  death  of  the  neural  processes  ends  the 
parallelism  for  good  and  all. 

If  we  do  not  adopt  parallelism,  and  there  are  grave 
metaphysical  objections  (and  some  psycho-physical 
ones)  to  that  course,  we  must  look  for  the  cause  of  the 
correspondence  elsewhere  than  in  the  mind  alone  or  the 
body  alone.  And  if  we  call  in  causality  we  are  com- 
mitted to  that  "total  configuration  of  the  universe," 
the  system  of  all-embracing  relations,  for  which  we 
found  ultimate  consciousness  to  be  the  only  adequate 
expression. 

The  position  of  idealism  then  is,  that  all  objects 
and  events  that  do  not  exist  in  finite  consciousness  exist 
in  ultimate  consciousness  of  which  finite  consciousness 
is  a  part.  Spatio-temporal  objects  and  events,  which 
are  not  known  in  the  space-time  of  finite  consciousness, 
are  known  in  the  Space-Time  of  ultimate  conscious- 
ness. 

Molecular  motions  and  neural  processes  are  such 


VIII        RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       265 

events.  Therefore  when  the  idealist  agrees  that  mole- 
cular motions  and  neural  processes  make  a  difference 
to  the  content  of  a  finite  consciousness  such  that  with- 
out them  there  would  not  be  any  finite  consciousness  at 
all,  what  he  means  is  that  the  content  of  ultimate  con- 
sciousness makes  a  difference  to  the  content  of  finite 
consciousness,  or  even  to  finite  consciousness  itself. 

Finite  mind  has  not  complete  control  over  its  own 
consciousness.  If  it  is  to  be  conscious  of  its  body,  its 
body  must  be  "in"  its  consciousness  like  any  other  con- 
tent. But  its  consciousness  and  its  body  are  also  "in" 
ultimate  consciousness,  as  parts  within  the  whole  and 
ultimate  consciousness  has  control  over  its  parts,  so 
that  they  exist  in  a  relation  of  dependence  on  the  whole. 
And  this  is  the  solution  of  the  dilemma  we  encountered 
in  Chapter  III,  in  considering  the  status  of  the  "real 
object"  of  perception. 

If  we  deny  its  independence  we  shall  have  to  admit 
between  the  whole  and  its  parts  a  temporal  cleavage 
fatal  to  their  spatial  integrity ;  that  is  to  say,  the  parts 
— for  example,  each  ellipsoid — will  exist  in  dependence 
on  a  partial  perception  at  a  time  previous  to  the  ex- 
istence of  the  combination,  the  whole. ^ 

That  is,  supposing  the  whole  to  exist  in  our  con- 
sciousness only  after  we  have  combined  the  parts.  But 
if  the  whole  exists  already  combined  in  the  ultimate 
consciousness  which  idealism  assumes,  this  particular 
dilemma  will  not  arise. 

We  talk  about  the  dependence  of  mind  on  body ;  but 
we  now  see  what  the  real  relation  of  dependence  is. 
It  is  one  that,  without  doing  violence  to  a  single  fact, 
leaves  idealism  fairly  in  possession  of  the  field.  This  is 
not  saying  that  ultimate  consciousness  exists ;  only  that 
if  it  did  exist  it  would  provide  a  reasonble  solution  of 
an  otherwise  hopeless  problem. 

*  Above:  Some  Bealist  Theories  of  Perception,  pp.  76,  77. 


266  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  vm 

For  the  problem  is  hopeless  for  realism  too. 

There  has  been  and  will  be  so  much  unavoidable  re- 
iteration in  this  argnment  that  I  will  not  repeat  what  I 
have  already  said  on  this  score. ^ 

Professor  Alexander  is  no  doubt  right  when  he  says 

"If  colour  were,  as  it  is  alleged  to  be,  the  work  of  mind,  we 
should  have  the  unintelligible  result  that  a  set  of  vibrations  is  seen 
not  as  a  set  of  vibrations  but  as  colour." ' 

But  supposing  a  set  of  vibrations  to  mean  the  move- 
ment of  bodies  in  the  Space-Time  of  ultimate  conscious- 
ness, it  will  be  itself  the  work  of  mind ;  and  the  mental 
result,  colour,  will  not  be  unintelligible.  If  it  is,  I  do 
not  see  what  realism  is  to  make  of  its  own  non-mental 
vibrations,  and  non-mental  colour.  And  I  do  not  see 
how  molecular  motions,  inside  the  body,  can  set  up  a 
sensum  in  space  outside  it ;  nor  yet,  supposing  the  sen- 
swm  to  be  there,  already,  full-blown  and  independent, 
how  they  can  cause  the  mind  to  be  conscious  of  it.  And 
if,  as  Professor  Alexander  says,  the  mind  is  the  neural 
process,  then  it  is  inside  the  body,  and  I  cannot  see 
how  it  can  be  conscious  of  the  sensum  outside,  when  the 
sensum  is  not  the  molecular  motions  and  the  mind  is 
not  conscious  of  them  anyhow. 

You  may  say  the  sensory  nerve-endings  are  not  in- 
side the  body;  they  are  at  the  periphery,  in  direct 
contact  with  the  outside  molecules;  they  receive  the 
messages  of  the  sensa.  But  if  the  neural  processes  are 
the  messages,  or  the  continuation  of  the  messages  in 
neural  terms,  and  the  mind  is  the  neural  process,  how 
on  earth  is  it  to  know  what  they  stand  for,  what  it 
stands  for  itself?  If  they  stand  for  anything  they  stand 
for  it.  The  mind  is  conscious,  and  the  neural  processes 
are  not  its  consciousness ;  they  are  molecular  motions, 

^  Above:  Some  Bealist  Theories  of  Perception,  pp.  76,  77. 
'  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  II,  p.  244. 


VIII       RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       267 

the  very  thing  that  oonsoiousness  is  not  and  that  the 
sensa  are  not. 

The  realist  may  say  that  the  same  thing  applies  to  the 
idealist  assumption.  If  consciousness  and  its  content 
are  identical,  if  the  mind  is  the  sensa,  how  can  it  know 
what  they  stand  for?  The  obvious  answer  to  that  is: 
They  needn't  stand  for  anything  but  what  they  are, 
the  content  of  consciousness.  What  may  be  behind 
them,  what  they  conceivably  may  stand  for  in  ultimate 
consciousness,  is  precisely  what  the  mind  does  not  and 
cannot  know. 

Again:  If  the  inside  neural  molecular  motions  are 
continuations  of  the  outside  molecular  motions,  why  is 
the  mind  not  continued  outside?  And  if  they  are  not 
continuations  where  is  the  continuity  of  the  process 
which  begins  in  matter  and  ends  in  mind  ? 


Ill 

But  the  realist's  most  frequent  reproach  against 
idealism    is    that   it    confuses    "being"    and    "being  Being 
known. "    He  is  never  tired  of  showing  up  the  absurd-  ^^^ 
ities  of  this  position.    He  insists  rightly  that  to  be  and  Known 
to  be  known  are  two  very  different  things  and  do  not 
come  into  each  other's  categories  at  all;  that  it  doesn't 
make  a  ha'porth  of  difference  to  being  whether  it  is 
known  or  not;  that  quite  obviously  we  cannot  know 
things  unless  they  exist;  and  that  they  do  not  exist 
because  we  know  them  but  we  know  them  because  they 
exist.     He  points  out  triumphantly  that  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  universe  is  made  up  of  things  which 
are  even  now  not  known,  to  say  nothing  of  the  vast 
ages  of  geologic  time  before  consciousness  was  born  on 
this  planet. 

But  as  every  word  he  uses  in  this  connection  makes 
clear  that  he  is  thinking  of  our  consciousness  alone,  his 


268  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  viii 

triumph  is  no  more  than  the  cheap  triumph  of  common 
sense  over  the  lunacy  of  solipsism.  And  as  nobody 
takes  solipsism  a  bit  more  seriously  than  he  does,  all 
his  dancing  and  trumpet-blowing  and  flag-waving  is 
performed  upon  a  corpse.  His  argument  may  even  be 
turned  against  himself.  The  universe  cannot  exist  in 
our  consciousness  because  we  are  not  conscious  of  the 
greater  part  of  it.  Then,  supposing  we  were  conscious 
of  the  whole  universe,  supposing  there  is  a  conscious- 
ness that  knows  everything,  everything  may  exist  in 
that  consciousness. 

But  the  realist  goes  further.  He  maintains  that,  even 
if  there  were  such  a  consciousness,  the  universe  would 
not  exist  because  it  knew  it.  His  assumption  is  that 
to  be  conscious  of  a  thing  is  to  assert  its  independent 
existence,  to  be  conscious  of  the  difference  between  it 
and  consciousness.  Knowing  is  an  external  relation 
between  the  knower  and  the  thing  known.  Here  are 
three  distinct  statements  which  the  idealist  may  very 
well  challenge  the  realist  to  prove.  As  yet  the  realist 
has  not  brought  forward  any  proof.  The  three  state- 
ments are  supposed  to  be  self-evident,  or  to  rest  upon 
a  ''feeling,"  an  ''intuition,"  an  "assurance"  given  by 
consciousness  itself.  We  have  the  word  of  conscious- 
ness for  it.  I  shall  return  to  these  assumptions  of  re- 
alism later  on.^ 

Realism,  again,  is  within  its  rights  when  it  contends 
that  cosmic  processes  and  processes  of  thought  are 
radically  different.  There  are  irrational  elements, 
sensa  and  the  relations  between  sensa,  which  cannot 
be  swept  into  the  net  of  thought.  As  we  have  seen,  by 
far  the  greater  part  of  the  universe  is  of  this  nature. 
Evolution  does  not  proceed  by  a  series  of  jumping 
syllogisms.    The  cause  is  not  implied  in  the  effect  by 

^  Below :  Chapter  IX,  Primary  Consciousness,  pp.  274  et  seq. 


VIII       RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       269 

way  of  judgment.  The  laws  of  motion  are  not  the  laws 
of  thought.  When  we  enlarge  our  knowledge  by  experi- 
ment and  inductive  reasoning  we  are  not  creating  the 
content  of  our  knowledge.  The  great  generalisations 
of  science  are  discoveries  and  not  creations.  In  de- 
ductive reasoning  we  only  enlarge  our  knowledge  to 
the  extent  that  we  discover  a  thing  to  be  a  particular 
instance  of  a  universal  law ;  or  we  lay  out  our  general 
knowledge  into  its  elements  which,  again,  we  have  not 
created  but  discovered.  Idealism  assumes  that  there 
are  such  things  as  synthetic  judgments  a  priori;  but 
if  idealism  is  right  and  the  judgment  is  really  a  priori 
it  will  be  contained  in  the  mind  already  and  there  will 
be  no  synthesis ;  if  it  is  synthetic  it  will  add  something 
that  was  not  there  before,  which  consequently  will  not 
be  a  priori.  We  can  only  enlarge  our  experience  em- 
pirically, and  empirical  knowledge  is  not  creation  but 
discovery. 

Not  one  of  these  processes  bears  the  remotest  re- 
semblance to  any  process  of  nature. 

And  here  again  realism  scores  a  partial  victory.  But 
it  is  a  victory  over  epistemological  idealism  only.  And 
it  is  only  a  partial  one. 

To  begin  with,  it  either  ignores  all  that  idealism 
assumes,  or  it  implies  that  ultimate  consciousness 
''works"  in  the  same  way  as  finite  consciousness,  that 
it,  too,  acquires  knowledge  empirically ;  that  it  reasons, 
judges  and  infers ;  that  it  is  limited  in  space  and  time ; 
that  it  discovers  and  does  not  create ;  it  does  not  know 
the  whole  universe  completely;  it  is  not  an  all-em- 
bracing consciousness.  It  is  not  absolute;  it  is  not 
ultimate :  it  is  not  any  one  of  the  things  which  idealism 
supposes  it  to  be. 

We  cannot  blame  realism  for  this.  Idealism  itself 
betrayed  ultimate  consciousness  when  it  bestowed  on 


270  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  viii 

it  the  logical  forms  of  the  only  consciousness  we  know. 
We  have  to  admit  that  logical  idealism  is  in  a  dilemma. 
It  cannot  stand  on  both  legs. 

But  even  logical  idealism  had  at  least  one  leg  to  stand 
on.  For  though  thought  is  not  constitutive  of  the  whole 
universe  it  is  constitutive  of  a  large  part  of  it.  You 
cannot  conjure  away  the  categories.  Nor,  to  do  realism 
justice,  does  it  attempt  to  conjure  them  away,  or  to 
deny  their  a  priori  character.  But  it  does  not  regard 
these  elements  as  a  priori  for  us.  The  real,  a  priori  ele- 
ments, space,  time  and  the  categories,  are  not  created 
by  the  mind  but  discovered.  We  have  examined  the 
difficulties  which  are  involved  in  this  view.  We  saw 
that  you  cannot  take  Space-Time,  you  cannot  take  the 
categories  apart  from  mind,  even  from  mind  as  we 
know  it,  and  preserve  their  character.  The  contradic- 
tions which  arose  from  the  experiment  were  solved  by 
restoring  mind  to  its  place  in  the  problem.  We  need 
not  go  back  over  this  ground.^ 

There  is  yet  another  difficulty.  The  devout  idealist, 
in  criticising  Professor  Whitehead's  Concept  of  Na- 
ture, somewhat  confidently  stated  that  it  contained  a 
fundamental  contradiction  somewhere,  and  that  a  con- 
tradiction between  nature  and  its  concept  is  a  contradic- 
tion within  the  whole  of  reality  which  is  nature  and 
thought  taken  together.^  And  it  may  be  objected  that 
this  applies  equally  to  the  contradictions  of  finite  con- 
sciousness which  are  contradictions  within  the  whole. 
But  this  is  the  old  problem  of  the  finite  perspectives, 
and  we  found  that  it  was  solved  by  correlating  them 
with  the  "real"  geometry  of  ultimate  consciousness. 

But  since  the  logical  dilemmas  of  idealism  cannot  be 
solved  in  this  way,  I  see  no  course  for  idealism  but 
to  drop  its  logics  and  fall  back  on  the  distinction  be- 

^  Above:  Chapter  VI,  Space,  Time  and  Consciousness,  pp.  219,  245. 
*  Above :    Chapter    III,    Some    Bealist    Theories    of    Perception,    pp. 
109-111. 


VIII       RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       271 

tween  wliat  I  have  called  the  Primary  block  of  Con- 
sciousness and  Secondary  Consciousness.  If  it  can 
be  shown  that  this  distinction  is  compatible  with  a  true 
description  of  the  facts,  objections  which  are  only  dam- 
aging to  epistemological  idealism  will  not  apply. 

There  remains  the  gravest  charge  of  all  against  ideal- 
ism :  that  it  mixes  up  the  ratio  essendi  with  the  ratio 
cognoscendi;  that  it  thinks  things  are  because  they  are 
kyionm.  Or  rather  that  it  pretends  to  think  so;  for 
realists  will  not  admit  that  you  could  really  think  any- 
thing so  preposterous. 

This  is  a  formidable  criticism;  and  it  is  one  that 
idealists  have  laid  themselves  open  to  by  many  an  ill- 
considered  statement  of  their  position. 

If  I  say  that  things  are  moving  in  space-time  because 
I  perceive  them  moving,  I  am  taking  the  ratio  cogno- 
scendi for  the  ratio  essendi,  and  I  am  not  giving  any 
account  of  things  moving. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  I  say  with  the  realist  that  I 
perceive  them  moving  because  they  are  moving,  I  am 
taking  the  ratio  essendi  for  the  ratio  cognoscendi,  and 
I  am  not  giving  any  account  of  perception. 

But  if  I  say,  as  I  have  said,  unminded  motion  is  as 
unthinkable  as  any  other  unminded  category,  because 
of  its  discontinuity;  if  I  say  that  consciousness,  in 
gathering  up  all  past  and  present  positions  and  carry- 
ing them  on  into  the  future,  preserves  the  continuitj 
of  space-time,  and  saves  motion  from  perishing  with 
its  perishing  point-instants,  I  am  not  substituting  a 
law  of  thought  for  a  law  of  motion,  or  declaring  my 
consciousness  to  be  the  cause  of  which  motion  is  the 
effect,  I  am  stating  the  ratio  essendi  of  the  continuum, 
and  I  am  giving  an  account  of  the  total  complex:  mo- 
tion and  consciousness.  Consciousness  is  the  continu- 
um because  without  it  motion  will  not  conceivably  hold 
together,  but  it  is  not  the  continuum  because  I  know  it. 


272  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  viii 

The  consciousness  that  "knows"  in  this  sense  is  sec- 
ondary consciousness. 

Or,  again,  if  I  state  the  ratio  cognoscendi  thus:  J 
perceive  things  moving  because  things  moving  are  in 
my  consciousness ;  I  am  offering  a  perfectly  plausible 
reason  for  my  perceiving  them.  My  statement  is  only 
tautological  if  I  refuse,  as  the  realist  refuses,  to  recog- 
nise the  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary 
consciousness,  between  having  a  thing  in  consciousness, 
being  aware  of  it,  and  being  aware  of  the  awareness. 
For  by  the  time  that  I  have  begun  to  talk  about  my  rea- 
sons for  perceiving  things  I  am  aware  that  I  perceive 
them,  and  this  awareness  belongs,  not  to  the  conscious- 
ness that  contains  but  to  the  consciousness  that  con- 
templates. 

In  this  little  matter  of  the  ratio,  realism  is  only  scor- 
ing one  of  its  easy  victories — over  solipsism  (again!) 
this  time.  It  is  clear  to  the  very  humblest  intelligence 
that  the  reason  why  things  exist  is  not  because  I  per- 
ceive them  existing,  and  that  I  couldn't  perceive  them 
if  they  didn't  exist. 

But  it  is  a  little  matter  that  should  be  cleared  up 
once  for  all,  if  realists  and  idealists  are  not  to  go  on 
arguing  forever  at  cross-purposes.  Once  for  all,  then, 
the  sane  idealist  is  not  assigning  his  perception  as  a 
reason  for  the  existence  of  things,  or  even  his  existence 
as  a  reason ;  though  he  may  allege  his  belief  in  his  ex- 
istence as  a  reason  for  his  belief  in  the  existence  of 
things. 

And  when  the  argument  is  carried  into  the  region 
where  it  is  relevant,  the  region  of  ultimate  conscious- 
ness, even  there  the  realist  does  not  imagine  that  the 
universe  exists  because  God  knows  it.  He  supposes  it 
to  exist  because  the  consciousness  of  God  is  not  merely 
contemplative  but  creative  and  includes  his  Will,  and 
the  universe  is  the  content  and  the  outcome  of  that 


vni        RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       273 

creative  consciousness;  it  is  a  mode  of  God's  existenoe 
as  well  as  of  his  knowledge. 

The  case  of  idealism  is  not  summed  up  in  the  simple 
statement :  The  being  of  things  is  to  be  known.  That 
isn't  allowing  for  the  causality  of  God's  WiU. 

The  being  of  things  is  to  be  willed  and  their  appear- 
ance is  to  be  known. 


IX 

PRIMARY  CONSCIOUSNESS 
i 

Realists,  with  their  admirable  passion  for  precision, 
^®        are  always  asking  us  to  distinguish ;  above  all,  to  dis- 
tion        tingnish  between  consciousness  and  the  object  of  con- 
sciousness. 

In  turn  I  invite  them  to  distinguish  between  primary 
and  secondary  consciousness;  to  carry  their  passion 
still  further,  and  distinguish  between  distinctions,  be- 
tween the  distinctions  they  are  really  making  and  the 
distinctions  they  think  they  are  making;  between  the 
distinctions  they  can  and  cannot  make. 

Now  the  idealist  position  will  be,  I  think,  secure  when 
once  the  distinction  between  primary  and  secondary 
consciousness  is  made.  It  will  then  be  seen  that  the 
more  formidable  statements  of  realism  apply  to  sec- 
ondary consciousness  and  to  secondary  consciousness 
alone,  and  that  the  idealist  can  make  his  statements 
good  so  long  as  he  confines  them  to  primary  conscious- 
ness and  gives  realism  its  due.  Until  these  two  forms 
of  consciousness  are  discriminated,  realists  and  ideal- 
ists will  be  arguing  eternally  about  one  when  they  mean 
the  other. 

I  am  convinced,  not  only  that  it  is  possible  to  make 
this  distinction,  but  that  it  is  the  distinction  the  realist 
is  really  making  when  he  thinks  he  is  distinguishing 
between  consciousness  and  its  object.  Primary  con- 
sciousness is  concerned  with  all  the  objects  and  events 
and  relations  and  conditions  which  are  immediately 

274 


IX  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       275 

present  in  it,  whether  ^^erceived  or  conceived,  remem- 
bered, anticipated  or  willed.  It  thus  includes  space  and 
time,  motion  and  all  the  other  categories,  all  the  em- 
pirical qualities  of  matter,  all  empirical  quantities  and 
intensities,  all  seifsa,  all  percepts  and  concepts,  all  acts 
of  will,  all  feelings,  passions  and  emotions,  when  and 
as  experienced,  and  all  the  raw  material  of  judgment 
and  reasoning.  Primary  consciousness  is  the  whole 
block  immediately  present  in  consciousness,  before  re- 
flection, or  judgment,  or  any  sort  of  secondary  aware- 
ness has  got  to  work  on  it. 

The  realist  will,  of  course,  quarrel  with  the  definition. 
He  will  say  that  the  block  is  not  present  in  conscious- 
ness but  to  consciousness.  He  will  say  this  because  he 
has  already  made  the  distinction  between  this  immedi- 
ate stuff  or  content  of  consciousness  and  the  awareness 
of  consciousness  which  supervenes  on  it.  And  because 
this  secondary  awareness  is  of  consciousness  (Mid  its 
content  (primary  consciousness  being  indistinguishable 
from  content),  and  because  it  is  distinguishable  from 
primary  consciousness,  it  seems  to  the  realist,  who  is 
confusing  the  two  consciousnesses,  that  consciousness 
can  be  distinguished  from  its  content.  Ask  the  first 
realist  you  meet  if  he  can  distinguish  between  his  pri- 
mary and  his  secondary  consciousness.  If  he  says  he 
can  not,  it  will  be  clear  that  he  has  never  attended  to 
what  happens  when  he  is  conscious.  His  secondary 
consciousness  has  been  so  busy  philosophizing  that  it 
does  not  know  what  its  primary  consciousness  is  doing. 
Yet  until  the  secondary  act  of  reflection  has  taken  place 
it  is  impossible  to  shave  off  the  thinnest  slice  of  pure 
consciousness  from  the  primary  block,  so  entirely  is  it 
one  with  its  object.  Object  and  consciousness  are  given 
whole  in  one  indivisible  act  or  state.  This  is  true  even 
of  casual  and  comparatively  shallow  perceptions ;  but 
when  consciousness  is  most  intense,  when  its  content  is 


276  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

most  vivid,  when  consciousness  has  reached  saturation 
point,  its  identity  with  its  object  is  absolute.  It  is  then 
impossible  to  divide  what  consciousness  has  joined.  Yet 
it  is  at  this  point  that  primary  consciousness  is  the  in- 
tensest  affirmation  of  the  object's  existence. 

There  is  no  reason  why  this  should  be  so  if  realism  is 
true.  It  holds  good,  not  only  of  very  near  and  diffused 
objects,  such  as  tastes  and  smells,  but  of  objects  in  per- 
spective, and  of  sounds.  These  are  facts  which  anybody 
can  verify  for  himself  by  simply  concentrating  his  at- 
tention on  some  object.  Think,  first  of  all,  of  some 
overpowering  sensation  or  perception.  When  you  see 
a  flash  of  lightning,  or  hear  the  firing  of  two  batteries, 
or  feel  the  stab  of  toothache,  how  clearly  do  you  dis- 
tinguish between  consciousness  and  its  object?  And 
in  what  terms  are  you  going  to  describe  the  difference  ? 
You  can  refer  the  flash  to  its  course  in  the  sky,  the  fir- 
ing to  the  French  and  German  positions,  and  your  pain 
to  your  tooth;  but  the  sky  and  the  positions  and  your 
tooth  are  all  parts  of  the  field  of  primary  conscious- 
ness; and  when  once  you  start  deliberately  referring, 
secondary  consciousness  has  set  in.  Where,  in  the  over- 
powering moment,  is  your  distinction  between  con- 
sciousness, and  the  flash,  the  sheU  fire,  or  the  pain? 

If  realism  were  true,  you  would  expect  the  very  op- 
posite results.  The  more  intense,  the  more  vivid,  the 
more  stupendous  the  object,  the  easier  it  ought  to  be 
to  distinguish  it  from  your  consciousness  of  it,  if  real- 
ism were  true. 

Or  consider  the  profound  contemplation  of  some 
beautiful  thing,  or  of  some  enthralling  idea;  or  take 
ordinary,  everyday  perception,  or  ordinary,  everyday 
thinking  in  its  first  innocence;  at  whatever  stage  dis- 
crimination comes,  it  comes  too  late  to  separate  this 
pure,  primary  consciousness  from  its  object.  The  razor 
blade  of  analytic  thought  can  only  get  in  between  it 


IX  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       277 

and  the  secondary  act.  It  can,  that  is  to  say,  only  dis- 
tinguish between  consciousness  and  consciousness. 

Because  this  distinction  can  be  made,  realists  have 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  the  distinction  between 
consciousness  and  its  object  can  be  made.  Because  the 
distinction  is  complete,  and  secondary  consciousness,  as 
mere  awareness  of  awareness,  is  a  very  narrow  margin, 
and  a  blank  transparency  at  that,  it  has  seemed  possible 
to  them  to  regard  consciousness  itself  as  a  very  narrow 
margin,  and  to  describe  it  in  terms  which  imply  that  it 
is  nothing  but  a  blank  transparency.  And  because  the 
relation  of  consciousness  to  consciousness  is  a  relation 
of  mere  assenting  compresence  without  content,  it  has 
seemed  possible  to  Professor  Alexander  to  define  the 
relation  of  consciousness  to  its  object  as  a  relation  of 
compresence  of  precisely  the  same  kind  that  obtains 
between  the  table  and  the  floor.  The  sameness  is  very 
far  from  perfect,  seeing  that  the  table  and  the  floor 
have  each  a  character,  while  the  consciousness  of  real- 
ism has  none. 

Let  us  look  more  closely  at  these  relations.  Take  the 
simple  case  of  seeing  a  tree. 

Professor  Alexander  says, 

"I  am  aware  of  my  awareness  as  I  strike  a  stroke  or  wave  a 
farewell.  My  awareness  and  my  being  aware  of  it  are  identical. 
I  experience  the  tree  as  I  strike  a  man  or  wave  a  flag."  ^ 

If  he  admits  that  my  awareness  and  my  being  aware 
of  it  are  identical  (which  they  are  not),  he  admits  that 
consciousness  and  the  object  of  it  can  be,  so  far,  iden- 
tical. 

My  experience  of  a  tree  is  my  awareness  of  the  tree. 
Quite  obviously,  mere  awareness  is  awareness  and  it  is 
not  a  tree.  Awareness  of  awareness  has  no  content  but 
awareness ;  and  in  this  logical  sense  the  two  are  iden- 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  12. 


278  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

tical.  They  are,  that  is  to  say,  identical  in  essence  but 
not  in  existence;  for  the  two  awarenesses  are  numer- 
ically distinct. 

Again,  tree  has  a  different  logical  essence  from  mere 
awareness,  awareness  that  can  serve  in  different  con- 
texts. 

The  question  is,  has  it  a  numerically  distinct  exist- 
ence from  awareness-of-tree ?  The  realist's  argument 
requires  not  only  that  the  object  should  have  this  exist- 
ence numerically  distinct  from  awareness,  but  that 
awareness  and  awareness  of  awareness  should  be  iden- 
tical existences,  which  they  are  not.  Professor  Alex- 
ander says  that  they  are  identical,  presumably  because 
their  logical  content  is  identical;  and  he  says  that 
awareness-of-tree  is  different  from  tree  presumably  be- 
cause their  logical  essence  is  different.  It  seems  to  me 
that  he  is  thus  confusing  between  essence  and  existence. 

The  idealist  takes  the  two-fold  opposite  view  of  these 
relations.  Unlike  Professor  Alexander,  he  distin- 
guishes between  awareness  and  awareness  of  aware- 
ness, on  the  grounds  that  you  are  here  dealing  with 
two  numerically  distinct  states  or  acts  of  consciousness, 
with  what  I  call  primary  consciousness  on  the  one  hand 
and  secondary  consciousness  on  the  other.  And  he  re- 
fuses to  distinguish  between  tree  and  awareness-of- 
tree  on  the  grounds  that  you  have  here  one  act 
and  one  content,  which  together  are  one  existent,  one 
indivisible  state  of  consciousness.  That  is  to  say  he 
treats  the  conjunction  "of,"  which  realists  make  such 
a  fuss  about,  not  as  disjunctive,  separating  conscious- 
ness from  its  content,  but  as  descriptive,  qualifying  con- 
sciousness as  consciousness  of  tree.  ' '  Consciousness  of 
tree"  expresses  the  relation  from  the  knowing  side ;  the 
real  or  ontological  relation  would  be  expressed  by  ''tree 
of  consciousness,"  a  term  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  no 
idealist  has  yet  had  the  courage  to  adopt. 


IX  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       279 

The  trouble  is  that  it  is  not  easy  to  define  conscious- 
ness without  begging  either  the  idealist  or  the  realist 
position.    Professor  Alexander  says  it  is 

.  .  .  "another  general  name  for  acts  of  mind,  which  in  their  rela- 
tion to  other  existences,  are  said  to  be  conscious  of  them  as  their 
objects."  ^ 

This  definition  is  viciously  circular,  besides  begging 
the  question  of  the  nature  of  consciousness.  Conscious- 
ness may  be  a  state  and  not  an  act.  I  might  define  it 
as  the  presence  of  any  content  within  the  mind,  leaving 
unstated  the  nature  of  the  content  and  the  possible  ex- 
istence of  any  corresponding  object  "outside."  This 
definition  is  open  to  the  objection  that  it  leaves  out  the 
distinctive  character  of  consciousness.  Yet  if  I  define 
it  as  awareness  of  presence,  or  awareness  of  content,  I 
am  defining  it  by  itself  with  the  subtle  suggestion  of 
discrimination  thrown  in.  Whereas,  clearly,  the  pres- 
ence or  absence  of  consciousness  is  precisely  the  pres- 
ence or  absence  of  content,  whether  ''content"  (or  its 
corresponding  "object")  is  or  is  not  present  in  the 
absence  of  consciousness. 

And  there  is  trouble  with  the  very  terms  themselves. 
I  have  been  using  the  term  "consciousness"  as  inter- 
changeable with  "awareness."  And  I  notice  that  real- 
ists are  fond  of  saying  "awareness"  when  they  mean 
consciousness,  where  idealists  say  consciousness  and 
mean  it.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  gives  them  a  slightly 
unfair  advantage  in  their  argument,  so  far  as  aware- 
ness implies  that  supervening  stage  of  discrimination, 
which,  I  believe,  is  not  to  be  found  in  primary  conscious- 
ness taken  in  its  imiocence.  That  is  to  say,  by  sub- 
stituting awareness  for  consciousness,  when  we  are 
talking  about  consciousness  pure  and  simple,  the  realist 
is  helping  himself  to  the  very  discrimination  which  is 

^  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  12. 


280  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

in  dispute.  Therefore  I  prefer  the  less  controversial 
term,  and  if  the  realist  chooses  to  say  I  am  taking  ref- 
uge in  vagueness,  he  may.  I  do  not  think  I  am  taking 
refuge,  and  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  talk  about  per- 
ceiving, feeling,  sensing,  or,  if  he  likes,  sense-aware- 
ness, while  contending  stiffly  that,  where  these  states 
can  be  said  to  be  distinguishable  from  their  content  we 
are  dealing  with  secondary  and  not  primary  conscious- 
ness. 

Professor  Alexander  considers  that  the  idealist  posi- 
tion is  based  on  a  false  inference  from  the  fact  that  the 
mind  can  select  the  objects  of  its  special  attention. 

"This  selectiveness  of  the  mind  induces  the  belief  that  objects  of 
mind  are  made  by  it,  so  that  they  would  not  be  except  for  the  mind."  * 

Is  this  really  the  basis  of  idealism?  The  belief  is 
surely  due  to  the  fact,  not  that  the  mind  selects  (for  it 
only  selects  from  among  objects  already  "in"  con- 
sciousness), but  that  it  does  not  and  cannot  distinguish 
between  object  and  consciousness  in  the  primary  block. 
Professor  Alexander  says  that  his  experience  "declares 
the  distinct  existence  of  the  object  as  something  non- 
mental."  If  by  "experience"  he  means  his  primary 
consciousness,  it  declares  nothing  of  the  sort;  it  de- 
clares only  the  existence  of  the  object.  Even  secondary 
consciousness,  intervening,  declares  no  distinction  be- 
tween primary  consciousness  and  its  content,  neither 
does  it  commit  itself  to  any  statement  as  to  the  charac- 
ter of  the  object  as  non-mental.  That  is  an  assumption 
of  speculative  philosophers;  a  kind  of  tertiary  con- 
sciousness. If  common  sense  also  assumes  it,  this  does 
not  mean  that  common  sense  does  or  can  distinguish 
between  primary  consciousness  and  its  object,  but  that 
it  can  and  does  distinguish  between  secondary  (or  ter- 

*  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol  I,  p.  15. 


IX  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       281 

tiary)  and  primary  consciousness,  and  between  objects 
with  a  definite  position  in  space  and  time,  and  the  self 
incarnate  in  a  definite  organism  with  a  definite  position 
in  space  and  time.  Common  sense,  if  it  thinks  at  all, 
thinks  that  it  distinguishes  between  consciousness  and 
its  content  in  the  primary  block,  because  it  falsely  re- 
fers to  the  primary  block  the  only  distinctions  it  can 
and  does  make. 

So  when  Professor  Alexander  says  the  distinct  exist- 
ence of  my  object  from  my  mind  is  attested  by  experi- 
ence itself,  we  can  only  ask  him,  by  what  experience? 
Or  by  experience  at  what  stage?  He  says  it  is  "a 
truth  which  a  man  need  only  open  his  eyes  to  see," 
whereas  it  seems  to  me  rather  an  assumption,  true  or 
false,  which  a  man  is  more  likely  to  make  with  his  eyes 
shut.  When  I  open  my  eyes  I  see  a  field  of  yellow  char- 
lock, very  bright  in  the  sunshine,  and  beyond  it  a  line 
of  trees,  and  beyond  the  trees  a  steep  range  of  many- 
coloured  fields,  and  beyond  the  fields  a  very  pale  blue 
sky  with  shreds  of  white  cloud  drifting  across  it.  It  is 
not  until  there  is  a  definite  click  in  my  consciousness 
and  I  am  conscious  of  my  consciousness,  that  I  can  dis- 
tinguish between  it  and  these  things.  And  this,  I  main- 
tain, is  a  distinction  between  consciousness  and  con- 
sciousness, and  not  as  the  realist  assumes,  between  con- 
sciousness and  things.  That  distinction  is  never  given 
along  with  my  perceptions  in  the  primary  block.  I  can 
only  make  it  on  reflection,  by  deliberately  inserting  the 
analytic  blade  between  this  superconsciousness  and  the 
original  block;  but  the  consciousness  I  thus  separate 
off  is  a  blank  without  form  or  quality  or  quantity ;  it  is 
as  near  being  a  non-entity  as  anything  can  be  which  is 
the  subject  of  intelligible  propositions.  The  distinction 
is  made  within  consciousness,  and  I  am  conscious  of  it 
as  made  and  not  given.    The  realist's  error,  as  I  take  it, 


282  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

arises  from  his  assumption  that  objective  content  can 
only  be  given  to  consciousness  by  objects  existing  apart 
from  it  in  an  external  field. 

Professor  Alexander's  distinction  between  conscious- 
ness and  objects  of  consciousness  appears  again  as  the 
distinction  between  what  he  calls  "enjoyment"  and 
what  he  calls  "contemplation."  "The  mind  enjoys  it- 
self and  contemplates  its  objects."  It  is  never  an  ob- 
ject of  contemplation  to  itself.  And  he  says  that  if  you 
fail 

.  .  ."to  find  in  your  experiencing  the  act  of  experiencing  the  enjoy- 
ment, but  find  only  the  object  and  nothing  else  .  .  .  the  reason 
is  that  you  are  seeking  for  the  enjoyed  as  if  it  were  the  object 
contemplated."  * 

To  "assure  yourself  of  the  compresence  of  the  non- 
mental  object  with  the  enjoyed  mind"  you  must 

"seek  for  the  enjoyment  as  something  which  you  mind  or  live 
through,  and  which  you  are,  and  beginning  with  the  acts  highest  in 
the  scale  like  willing  or  desiring,  where  the  enjoyed  act  is  palpable, 
descend  in  the  scale  through  constructive  imagination  to  remembering, 
perceiving  and  at  last  to  bare  sensing  of  a  sensum,  where  the  en- 
joying act  is  least  distinct."  .   .    .* 

Where,  in  other  words,  the  distinction  between  con- 
sciousness and  its  object  is  least  perceptible.  So  that 
this  affair  of  distinguishing  is  by  no  means  the  simple, 
self-evident  and  immediate  thing  it  was  assumed  to  be ; 
let  alone  that  it  reveals  the  fact  (which  should  be  dis- 
concerting to  the  realist)  that  in  willing  and  desiring 
at  any  rate,  "the  enjoyed  act  is  palpable."  You  might 
as  well  say  at  once  it  is  contemplated  as  much  as  the 
sensum  is,  so  that  mind  can  become  on  occasion  its  own 
object. 

Further,  on  this  view  the  relation  of  knower  to  thing 
known  is  a  relation  of  "compresence";  the  self-enjoy- 

'  Space,  Time  and  Deity,  Vol.  I,  p.  20. 
^  The  same. 


IX  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        283 

ing  mind  and  the  contemplated  object  are  together. 
How  is  this  relation  experienced!  Professor  Alexander 
says  this  question  is  put ' '  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
being  which  has  the  experiencing,  that  is,  the  mind," 
and  that  therefore  the  relation  is  enjoyed,  not  contem- 
plated; it  is  a  subjective  relation,  a  relation  without 
reality  in  the  external  world ;  therefore,  on  the  realist 
hypothesis,  we  have  no  guarantee  that  the  assumption 
of  this  relation  is  a  true  one — and  it  is  the  assumption 
on  which  realism  rests.  It  seems  to  me  that  this  is  se- 
rious— for  the  realist. 

ii 

If  Professor  Alexander's  definition  of  the  relation  of 
consciousness  to  its  object  is  peculiar,  it  is  none  the  less  The 
the  necessary  and  logical  outcome  of  his  theory  of  c,^u- 
Space-Time.     Space  and  Time  have  more  to  do  with  sion 
realism  than  even  appears  in  Professor  Alexander's 
philosophy;  more  than  realists  would  care  to  admit 
when  it  is  fairly  put  to  them.    If  you  tell  a  realist  that 
when  he  thinks  he  is  distinguishing  between  his  mind 
and  its  object  he  is  really  distinguishing  between  the 
object  and  his  body,  he  will  probably  ask  you  what  on 
earth  you  mean,  and  protest  that  he  is  doing  nothing  of 
the  sort.    Yet  it  was  precisely  on  this  confusion  that 
Professor  Santayana's  biological  proof  of  realism  was 
based.^ 

And  it  is  partly  on  this  confusion  that  the  plain  man's 
naif  realism  is  based.  The  plain  man  will  have  to  get 
out  of  his  skin  before  he  can  see  that  the  distance  be- 
tween his  body  and  the  church  steeple  is  not  a  distance 
between  the  steeple  and  his  mind.  All  the  actions  and 
reactions  of  his  body  in  relation  to  things  external  to 
it  confirm  him  in  this  confusion.    He  may  have  just 

^Essays  in  Critical  Eealism,  pp.  169-173. 


284  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

sufficient  discrimination  to  know  that  when,  if  ever,  he 
says  to  himself  "I  am  conscious  that  I  am  conscious  of 
that  tree,"  the  tree  has  nothing  to  do  with  this  secon- 
dary consciousness ;  but  since,  like  a  realist  philosopher, 
he  has  already  mistaken  his  primary  for  his  secondary 
consciousness,  it  is  no  wonder  if  he  thinks  it  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  tree. 


m 

But  realism,  naif  or  new,  critical  or  spatio-temporal, 
^®        is  only  partly  based  on  these  confusions  and  misplaced 
ceived     discriminations.     The  plain  man  and  the  philosopher 
^d^'  ^^^  ^^^^  point  to  one  indubitable  fact  that  apparently 
CJniciai    supports  them.  Objects  exist  when  we  are  not  conscious 
of  them.     But  to  prove  that  they  must  exist  without 
some  consciousness  we  should  have  to  perform  an  oper- 
ation on  the  universe,  extract  all  the  consciousness  in 
it,  down  to  the  last  spark  of  ultimate  consciousness,  and 
see  how  many  objects  would  be  left.    The  indubitable 
fact  is  only  damaging  to  a  theory  which  assumes  that 
there  is  no  consciousness  in  the  universe  but  our  own. 
There  are  realities,  then,  which  are  not  objects  of 
perception  or  any  primary  consciousness.    But  of  these 
realities  which  are  not  objects  of  perception  some  may 
be  objects  of  scientific  knowledge,  and  some  may  be  ob- 
jects of  metaphysical  speculation.    There  may  be  other 
realities  which  are  neither  objects  of  perception  nor 
objects  of  scientific  knowledge,  nor  objects  of  meta- 
physical speculation,  and  of  these  nothing  can  be  said. 
The  questions  which  concern  us  here  are  two :  (1)  What 
is  the  status  of  the  reality  which  is  not  an  object  of 
perception  but  an  object  of  science?     (2)  What  is  the 
status  of  scientific  knowledge  ?    Is  it  primary  or  secon- 
dary?   Both  questions  belong  properly  to  the  following 


IX  BECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       285 

chapter  on  Secondary  Consciousness.  But  as  the  un- 
perceived  reality  has  bearings  on  the  objects  of  primary 
consciousness  it  had  better  be  considered  here.  It  is 
impossible  to  separate  primary  from  secondary  con- 
sciousness altogether,  or  both  from  ultimate  conscious- 
ness ;  though  I  am  afraid  the  double  treatment  will  en- 
tail much  tiresome  overlapping  and  repetition. 

What  is  the  status  of  the  reality  which  is  not  an  ob- 
ject of  perception  ?  To  use  Professor  Broad 's  example, 
a  light-wave  or  an  electron?  ^ 

Neither  is  an  object  of  possible  perception,  nor  yet 
of  primary  conception  or  of  any  direct  awareness,  but 
each  is  an  object  of  scientific  contemplation,  an  object, 
that  is  to  say,  of  consciousness  in  a  sense,  since  it  is 
before  consciousness.    It  is,  if  you  like,  a  purely  hypo- 
thetical entity  called  in  to  account  for  a  certain  ascer- 
tainable behaviour  of  light  or  the  motions  of  molecules. 
As  regards  reality  it  is  in  a  very  different  position  from 
the  mere  subject  of  a  proposition.    But  it  does  not  be- 
long to  that  primary  block  of  consciousness  which  is 
all  that  idealism  dare  affirm  to  be  indistinguishable 
from  its  object.    It  is  clear  that  we  can  distinguish  be- 
tween the  object  of  scientific  observation  and  the  kind 
of  consciousness  concerned  with  it.    And  it  may  cer- 
tainly be  said  to  exist  unperceived  and  to  be  real  in  this 
sense  (which  is  Professor  Broad's  sense)  of  reality. 
Perhaps  it  never  can  exist  as  an  object  of  any  possible 
perception.    It  is  even  possible  that  it  may  not  exist  at 
all,  and  that  some  other  entity  is  responsible  for  the 
behaviour  it  was  called  in  to  account  for.    It  stands  or 
falls  as  a  reality  by  its  ability  to  account  for  perceived 
events.    Thus  it  is  impossible  to  separate  it  altogether 
from  the  context  of  perceived  events.    It  only  exists  in 

>  "  All  appearances  are  objects,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  all  realities 
are  objects.  For  we  might  have  grounds  for  believing  in  the  existence 
of  realities  which  we  could  never  directly  perceive.  Such  realities  would 
be  a  light-wave  or  an  electron. ' '     Perception,  Physics  and  Beahty,  p.  8. 


286  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

a  certain  definite  relation  to  objects  perceived,  objects 
that  we  have  agreed,  on  the  idealist's  theory,  to  have 
no  existence  when  they  are  not  perceived. 
The  crucial  questions  then  are : 

(1)  Is  that  relation  such  as  to  compel  us  to  revise 
our  theory  and  to  refer  our  perceived  objects  to  the 
category  of  objects  that  exist  unperceived? 

(2)  Or  is  it  such  as  to  preserve  their  seat  in  the  pri- 
mary block  of  consciousness  intact  ? 

(3)  Is  it  such  as  to  admit  of  our  referring  the  whole 
system  of  unperceived  realities  themselves  to  a  possible 
larger  system  of  consciousness? 

To  fulfil  the  requirements  of  (1)  it  is  not  enough  that 
the  relations  of  the  unperceived  to  the  perceived  object 
should  be  such  that  without  them  there  would  be  no 
perception  and  no  object  perceived.  For  it  might  very 
well  be  that  the  behaviour  of  the  unperceived  entities  is 
merely  the  spark  that  fires  the  train  of  perception ;  the 
perceived  objects  springing  up  in  one  indivisible  gene- 
rative mental  act.  It  might  be  that  the  primary  block 
of  consciousness  is  the  subject's  response  to  the  ex- 
ternal stimulus.  The  perceived  object  must  be  shown 
arising  directly  from  the  stimulus  without  the  collab- 
oration of  the  mind. 

And  this  cannot  be  shown.  It  is  not  possible  to  show 
any  direct  causal  connection  between,  for  example, 
light-waves  of  a  certain  length  and  rate  of  vibration 
and  the  sensum  blue.  Between  the  movements  of  light 
waves  and  neural  molecular  movement,  if  you  like ;  but 
what  are  you  to  say  of  the  leap  from  vibrations  to  blue  ? 
What  relation  have  we  here  ? 

Well,  idealism  is  bound  to  admit  that  we  have  a  rela- 
tion such  that  without  it  there  would  be  no  perceived 
object.  No  perceived  object  if  the  path  of  the  vibra- 
tion is  blocked.  No  sensum  blue  if  either  cortex  or  optic 
nerve  is  destroyed  or  injured.    There  is  an  invariable 


IX  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       287 

sequence  between  change  in  the  cortex  and  the  emerg- 
ence of  blue.    How  do  we  know  that  the  sequence  is  a 
causal  one,  in  the  sense  that  it  is  a  one  Une  sequence 
going  straight  from  stimulus  to  cortex,  and  from  cortex 
to  sensum,  without  the  reaction  of  the  subject ?^    That 
the  relation  is  such  as  to  land  the  sensum  outside  not 
inside  consciousness?    We  have  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  what  we  have  here  is  nothing  hut  sequence,  a  smi- 
ple  linear  relation  or  nerve-change  to  sensum,  and  not 
correlation    of    nerve-change-relation-to-subject    with 
subject-change-relation-to-5e»i5i*m.    As  long  as  the  role 
of  the  subject  remains  uncancelled  we  are  under  no 
compulsion  to  hand  over  our  perceived  objects  to  the 
system  of  molecular  motions. 

(2)  If  these  objects  are  to  be  ousted  from  their  seat 
in  the  primary  block  of  consciousness,  we  must  be  able 
to  conceive  motion  not  only  as  continuous  throughout 
the  system  of  extended  matter,  but  as  continuous 
throughout  the  sensum  blue,  in  such  a  way  that  blue  can 
be  shown  to  be  nothing  but  a  mode  or  equivalent  of 

motion. 

Now,  at  first  sight,  so  close  is  the  correspondence  be- 
tween colours  and  rates  of  molecular  motion,  that  it 
looks  as  if  this  transformation  really  could  be  shown; 
a  certain  equivalence  is  undeniably  there.  But  can  it 
be  said  that  blue  is  nothing  but  a  mode  or  an  equiv- 
alent? Can  we  make  the  jump  from  rates  of  vibration 
which  are  purely  quantitative  to  the  unique,  pure  qual- 
ity of  blue? 

Must  we  not  rather  say  that  rates  of  vibration  act 
only  within  the  closed  system  of  the  nerves  and  cere- 
bral cortex,  that  they  determine  the  route  to  be  trav- 
elled by  molecular  discharges,  but  are  powerless  m 
themselves  to  determine  what  happens  beyond  the 
neural  terminus,  to  create  that  incomparable,  serenely 
static,  and  irreducible  blueness  of  blue?    If  we  are  to 


288  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  ix 

distingnisli,  let  us  begin  by  discriminating  between 
quantities  and  qualities,  between  events  which  are  mo- 
tions and  objects  which  are  not. 

Apparently  the  sensum  is  sustained  in  the  field  of 
consciousness  by  continual  fresh  impulses  of  matter  in 
motion  in  the  field  outside  it.  At  the  same  time,  as  far 
as  we  know,  each  successive  impact  ceases  with  the  en- 
trance of  the  sensa  on  the  field  of  consciousness,  and 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  a  new  order  of  events.  Some- 
thing has  happened  here  which  is  not  quite  transparent. 
What  has  become  of  the  original  molecular  motion? 
Of  all  those  molecular  motions  which,  mind  you,  are 
being  incessantly  renewed?  Supposing  the  organism 
to  be  in  a  state  of  rest,  and  consciousness  engaged 
peacefully  in  sustained  contemplation  of  its  sensa,  are 
we  to  understand  that  the  motions  are  discharging  into 
consciousness  in  the  form  of  sensa?  This  seems  incon- 
ceivable, since  neither  consciousness  nor  its  sensa  are 
modes  or  any  physical  equivalent  of  motion.  If  we  are 
to  say  that  they  are  modes  of  energy,  of  which  motion 
is  itself  a  mode,  we  have,  I  think,  got  a  fairly  intelligible 
concept;  but  it  is  one  which  compels  us  to  revise  our 
concept  of  energy  and  regard  it  as  anything  but  a  phys- 
ical thing.  It  is,  I  submit,  inconceivable  that  energy 
on  the  physical  level  of  molecular  motion  should  thus 
transform  itself  into  perceptions  and  objects  perceived. 

Still  there  is  correspondence,  and  the  idealist  may 
very  fairly  be  asked  what  he  is  going  to  do  about  it. 
There  is  that  awkward  matter  of  the  cerebral  cortex, 
which  if  it  does  not  rule  the  subject  out,  does  at  any 
rate  involve  its  action  in  a  relation  of  apparent  depend- 
ence upon  stimulus'?  What  does  idealism  make  of  the 
relation  ? 

(3)  Is  the  relation  such  as  to  admit  of  our  refer- 
ring the  whole  system  of  unperceived  objects  to  a  pos- 
sible larger  system  of  consciousness  ?   Is  the  whole  sys- 


IX  EEOONSTEUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       289 

tern  of  matter  in  motion  a  closed  system  outside  all 
consciousness?  Or  does  it  call  for  more  and  more  con- 
sciousness to  sustain  it? 

I  think  these  questions  were  answered,  as  far  as 
idealism  can  answer  them,  in  the  foregoing  chapters 
on  Space-Time,  on  the  categories,  and  on  the  correla- 
tions of  perspectives.  According  to  the  conclusions  we 
have  already  reached,  consciousness  with  all  its  sensa 
is  responding,  not  to  matter  in  motion,  but  to  conscious- 
ness on  some  higher  level  acting  through  matter  in 
motion.  Matter  in  motion  is  strictly  an  affair  of 
minded  Space-Time ;  and  Space-Time  is  nothing  but  the 
creative  form  of  higher  consciousness. 


X 

SECONDAEY  CONSCIOUSNESS 


As  primary  consciousness  is  the  whole  block  of  ex- 
The  perience,  as  it  stands  from  moment  to  moment,  before 
of  the  mind  has  got  to  work  on  it,  so  secondary  conscious- 

^^^^^  ness  is  that  work  of  the  mind.  It  is  the  first  act  which 
discriminates  consciousness  from  consciousness ;  but  it 
is  not  responsible  for  the  original  synthesis  or  the  orig- 
inal discrimination  of  objects  in  the  block.  Neither  is 
it  that  act  of  concentrated  attention  in  which  the  exist- 
ence of  the  object  is  intensely  realised.  That  act  we 
found  to  be  purely  primary  and  inexplicable  on  the 
realist  view.  For  it  is  at  that  point  of  indissoluble 
union  that  consciousness  most  plainly  asserts  the  ex- 
istence of  its  object.  But  it,  unlike  secondary  conscious- 
ness, cannot  assert  that  existence  as  independent  of 
itself. 

It  must  be  distinctly  understood  that  secondary 
consciousness,  in  declaring  its  object  independent  of 
itself,  is  not  declaring  it  independent  of  the  primary 
consciousness  in  which  it  is  found  embedded.  Once 
more,  the  distinction  which  secondary  consciousness 
draws  is  not  a  distinction  between  consciousness  and 
its  object,  but  between  consciousness  and  consciousness. 
Secondary  consciousness  is  always  the  work  of  the 
mind  on  the  primary  content,  the  play  of  the  mind 
round  about  its  object.  It  has  its  own  concentration 
on  its  object  in  the  form  of  secondary  attention.  It  is 
comprehensive.    It  includes  observation,  reflection  and 

290 


X  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       291 

meditation ;  judgment,  inference,  and  every  form  of  rea- 
soning, syllogistic  or  empirical ;  believing,  disbelieving 
and  opining;  imagining;  but  not  remembering,  antici- 
pating, dreaming,  or  day-dreaming,  which  are  primary. 
Its  object  may  be  primary  consciousness  itself  with  all 
its  content,  percepts  or  concepts. 

The  percept  or  concept  directly  contemplated  is  the 
internal  object  of  primary  consciousness;  the  percept 
or  concept  used  is  the  external  object  of  secondary  con- 
sciousness. 

Or  secondary  consciousness  may  be  its  own  object. 
It  may  turn  on  itself  and  analyse  its  own  work. 

At  its  highest  it  is  knoiving,  as  distinguished  from 
simply  being  conscious.  It  is  all  logic  and  all  scientific 
knowledge ;  and  as  such  its  objects  may  be  realities  un- 
perceived.  The  whole  region  of  discovery,  of  objects 
found  and  not  created,  belongs  to  secondary  conscious- 
ness. 

Primary  consciousness  never  lies,  because  it  never 
judges.  Secondary  consciousness  is  the  source  of  all 
error.  It  bears  the  burden  of  all  our  falsehoods  and 
our  blunders.  But,  combined  with  primary  conscious- 
ness, which  is  experience,  it  is  the  source  of  all  truth, 
the  mother  of  all  science  and  all  philosophy,  so  far  as 
philosophy  is  truth. 


u 


Its  relation  to  primary  consciousness  will  thus  be  a 
real  relation  of  consciousness  to  its  object,  and  its  dis-  Relation 
tinction  from  primary  consciousness  will  rest,  not  only  J^imary 
on  its  own  unsupported  assurance,  but  on  the  evidence  and^^ 

of  its  work.  dary 

It  does  what  primary  consciousness  cannot  do.  t^as- 

By  acts  of  secondary  attention  it  can,  within  limits,  nese 
select  or  reject,  arrange  and  rearrange  the  content  of 


292  THE  NEW  IDEALISM:  x 

the  primary  block.  It  can,  working  together  with  the 
will,  arrest  or  inhibit  its  own  attention. 

It  finds  and  does  not  make  the  objects  of  memory; 
but  it  has  a  certain  limited  power  over  remembrance. 
It  is  secondary  consciousness  that  drags  up  from  the 
depths  of  memory  certain  past  things  for  primary  con- 
sciousness to  contemplate.  It  works,  here  too,  together 
with  the  will;  but  it  has  no  control  over  involuntary 
memory  or  involuntary  attention. 

As  regards  Space-Time,  it  is  not  responsible  for  per- 
sonal perspectives  and  their  correlations;  but  it  is 
aware  of  them  as  personal,  and  primary  consciousness 
is  not.  Here  again,  it  can  fix  attention  on  one  perspec- 
tive to  the  exclusion  of  another;  within  very  strict 
limits,  it  can  select,  reject,  inhibit,  working  hand  in 
hand  with  the  will. 

The  will,  therefore,  falls  within  secondary  conscious- 
ness or  primary  according  to  whether  its  acts  are  pre- 
meditated or  unpremeditated,  deliberate  or  instantly 
decisive.  Our  experience  of  voluntary  and  involuntary 
acts,  of  acts  instantaneous  or  deliberate,  are  sometimes 
so  inextricably  mixed  that  it  is  hard  to  disentangle 
primary  from  secondary  consciousness  here.  But  the 
act  accomplished  is  always  part  of  the  content  of  pri- 
mary consciousness,  though  the  deliberations  that  led 
up  to  it  may  be  secondary. 

Again,  all  perception  is  involuntary ;  and  all  the  ob- 
jects of  imagination,  or  at  least  their  elements,  have  at 
one  time  or  other  been  perceived ;  but  the  work  of  imag- 
ination on  them  is  secondary.  And  when  the  work  is 
accomplished  the  result  may  become  a  content  of  pri- 
mary consciousness. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  objects  of  primary  perception 
or  conception  may  become  the  objects  of  secondary 
judgment,  inference  or  reasoning. 

Conversely,  the  objects  of  scientific  discovery  which 


X  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       293 

is  secondary,  when  found,  become  objects  of  primary 
consciousness,  conceptual  or  otherwise.  The  electron 
as  a  scientific  object  exists  unperceived;  as  a  concept 
it  may  be  contemplated  primarily.  Radium  before  it  is 
discovered  exists  as  a  secondary  concept,  a  hypothesis, 
discovered  it  becomes  a  primary  percept. 

And  primary  and  secondary  consciousness  work  to- 
gether in  all  creative  art ;  but  the  finished  work  of  art, 
the  creation,  becomes  the  object  of  primary  conscious- 
ness. 

Thus  the  two  play  into  each  other's  hands ;  but  there 
is  no  actual  point  in  the  game  at  which  they  resist 
separation. 

iii 

The  advantage  of  this  separation  is  that  it  enables 
us  to  admit  the  truth  of  realism's  most  important  state-  j^^gji^j^ 
ments — in  their  proper  place.    Applied  to  secondary  and 
consciousness    every    objection    that    realism    brings     ® 
against  consciousness  itself  holds  good. 

Secondary  consciousness  is  precisely  that  conscious- 
ness which  can  be  distinguished  from  its  object,  that 
knowing  which  is  not  being,  that  work  or  play  of  the 
mind  which  Professor  Whitehead  will  not  allow  to  in- 
terfere with  the  concept  of  nature,  that  side  of  mind 
which  it  is  so  irrelevant  to  drag  in.  It  is  all  those  pro- 
cesses of  thought  which  are  not  cosmic  processes,  which 
visibly  do  nothing  to  sustain  the  universe.  It  is  thought 
as  realism  would  have  it,  separated  from  things. 

And  it  is  as  clearly  dependent  on  primary  conscious- 
ness as  realism  says  consciousness  should  be  on  its 
object.  It  plays  into  realism's  hands  in  attesting  the 
existence  of  realities  unperceived. 

All  idealistic  logics  and  epistemologies  belong  to  it. 
It  is  idealism's  scapegoat  that  bears  the  burden  of  its 
sins,  the  brunt  of  realism's  attack. 


294  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  x 

Against  this  attack  primary  consciousness  is  secure, 
and  every  statement  that  new  idealism  makes  about 
consciousness  will  be  true  of  it. 

It  is  nothing  but  the  cosmos  of  all  experience  as  it 
exists  from  moment  to  moment,  rolling  on.  For  one 
primary  block  is  not  separable  from  the  next,  they  are 
continuous,  with  the  peculiar  continuity  which  con- 
sciousness confers.  It  is  all  Space-Time  as  experienced 
from  moment  to  moment.  In  it  all  matter  in  motion 
and  all  life  have  their  own  behaviour  and  their  own 
laws,  existing  in  perfect  independence  on  secondary 
consciousness  which  can  discover  them  but  not  create. 
Both  inside  the  block  and  outside  it  the  universe  goes 
on  its  own  way  as  if  neither  idealism  nor  realism  had 
ever  been. 

Once  admit  that  primary  and  secondary  conscious- 
ness are,  and  are  separable,  two  distinct  though  related 
acts  of  the  undivided  self,  and  you  can  afford  to  let 
both  consciousness  and  the  cosmos  rip.  Holding  fast 
by  the  distinction,  you  can  have  all  the  idealism  and  all 
the  realism  you  want. 


XL 

ULTIMATE  CONSCIOUSNESS 


As  secondary  consciousness  is  dependent  on  primary- 
consciousness,  so  both  are  dependent  on  ultimate  con-  Neces- 
sity of 
sciousness.  intimate 

Some  way  back,  in  considering  Professor  White- c^n-^ 
head's  Concept  of  Nature,  we  were  faced  with  the  prob-  ^ess 
lem  of  object  and  events.  We  found  that  the  object  had 
this  two-fold  contradictory  character  that  it  is  the  one 
permanent  thing  in  the  flux  of  events,  which  change  it 
while  they  do  not  change.  We  asked  whether  the  truth 
might  not  be  that  events  as  distinguished  from  objects, 
space  as  distinguished  from  time,  reality  as  distin- 
guished from  appearance,  and  nature  as  distinguished 
from  thought,  are  all  abstractions  from  the  unity  of  an 
all-embracing  Self. 

Considerations  of  Space-Time  forced  us  to  the  same 
conclusion.  We  found  that  physical  space-time  and 
mental  space-time  are  one  and  the  same.  (Indeed  Pro- 
fessor Alexander  says  they  are  the  same.)  If  so,  by 
what  right  do  you  separate  the  act  of  knowing  from  the 
object  known?  The  primal  stuff  of  nature  is  the  primal 
mind-stuff.  All  evolution  is  an  unfolding  and  elabora- 
tion of  the  primal  Space-Time  stuff,  therefore  of  the 
primal  mind-stuff. 

The  realist  really  cannot  make  good  his  assumption 
of  the  extended  nature  of  mind;  and  if  he  could  it 
wouldn't  help  him;  for  on  his  own  showing  mind  might 
know  extension  without  being  it.  But  once  admit  that 
mind-processes  and  mind-stuff  are  spatio-temporal  and 

295 


296  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

you  have  done  away  with  the  distinction  between  mind 
and  nature.  There  is  then  no  reason  why  you  should 
deny  that  mind  contributes  to  its  own  experience,  or 
that  the  whole  of  experience,  the  whole  known  universe, 
is  mind-product,  mind-stuff  and  mind-process.  In  the 
subject-object  relation,  instead  of  an  unintelligible  com- 
munion of  incompatibles,  you  will  have  a  mind  to  mind 
contact  generating  the  universe;  the  universe  will  be 
just  as  much  Subject-Object  as  it  is  Space-Time.  In 
fact,  this  will  be  the  more  fundamental  relation  of  the 
two.  Space  and  Time  will  be  what  Kant  said  they 
were:  the  a  priori  form  of  consciousness;  its  universal 
and  fundamental  form. 

All  the  same,  we  cannot  think  of  the  subject-object 
relation  as  preceding  Space-Time,  for  this  precedence 
would  have  to  be  in  time,  and  it  would  presuppose  an 
object  existing  out  of  space.  We  have  to  think  of  Space- 
Time  as  subsisting  in  and  through  the  subject-object 
relation.  Objections  are  only  valid  if  we  are  in  a  posi- 
tion to  deny  that  there  is  any  Self  in  the  universe  higher 
than  ourselves  and  more  comprehensive  than  Space- 
Time. 

This  is,  of  course,  the  flight  to  God ;  but  I  do  not  see 
how  it  is  to  be  avoided.  Realists  talk  as  if  the  idealist 
flew  to  God  to  stop  a  gap  in  a  bad  argument ;  whereas 
the  proper  use  of  a  God  is  to  stop  the  gaps  between 
consciousness  and  nature  and  between  nature  and  Him- 
self, much  as  M.  Bergson  uses  time  to  stop  space  with. 
What  are  we  to  do,  unless  we  either  fling  up  the  prob- 
lem as  insoluble,  or  agree  with  Professor  Alexander 
that  the  entire  universe,  and  Deity  with  it,  can  be 
evolved  out  of  the  correlations  of  pure  Space-Time? 
We  saw  the  breakdown  of  the  attempt  to  establish  all- 
embracing  relations  within  the  bare  concept  of  nature. 
One  by  one,  all  our  mindless  categories  betrayed  us. 
And  as  we  can  conceive  no  superior  continuous  unity 


XI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM  297 
but  that  of  conscious  selfhood,  we  can  but  plac«  reality 
under  the  highest  category  we  know.  E-n  he  fimte 
selves  give  continuous  unity  as  far  as  they  go,  thougu 
ftelr  consciousness  is  closed  to  the  greater  part  of 

"Ssm  says  this  dragging  in  of  God  is  entirely^un^ 
iustifiable.    We  are  not  to  help  ourselves  to  anything 
that  is  not  on  the  table.    But  in  the  end  it  has  to  help 
tself  to  DeHy     Why  not  in  the  beginning,  then,  when 
S  would  do  it  some  good?     Because,  ProfesBor 
Alexander  says,  you  can  think  away  everythmg  bu 
Scace-Time.    So  he  thinks  away  everything  and  ^tarte 
wftb  bare   Space-Time-well,  not  bare,  packed  with 
SttLntrif  you  ask  him.  What  next  I  What  can 
vou  get  out  of  that?  he  says.  Everything  m  time  if  you 
giveTt  time  enough,  and  in  Space,  if  you  give  it  space 
Lough.    Everything  happens ;  and  he  is  not  obliged  to 
account  for  its  happening;  he  is  not  concerned  with  the 
implications  of  its  happening. 
This  attitude  is  entirely  cynical. 
If  it  comes  to  thinking,  can  you  think  away  thought 
And  can  you  think  the  universe  out  of  nothing  but 
Space-Time!     Space-Time  holds  everything  together, 
iufwhat  holds  Space-Time  together?    Can  .they  be  mu- 
tually assuming  and  supporting?    By  thinking  of  Time 
as  pure  succession  can  you  deduce  Space  as  its  contin- 
uity'   By  thinking  of  Space  as  co-existence,  can  you 
deduce  Time  as  its  division?  How  does  Professor  Alex- 
ander arrive  at  his  masterly  correlations?    By  taking 
Space  and  Time  together,  as  we  find  them  m  conscious 
experience,  one  instant  of  Time  covering  many  points 
in  Space,  one  point  in  Space  enduring  through  many 
times.    So  that  Space  is  the  witness  to  past  Time  and 
the  guarantee  of  the  future.    Every  concrete  event  is 
made  up  of  such  endurance  and  such  continuity.    But 
the  two  do  not  logically  assume  and  support  one  an- 


298  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

other ;  they  have  not  their  ground  in  one  another ;  you 
cannot  pass  from  one  to  the  other;  and  you  can  very 
easily  think  away  their  correlation.  And,  since  they 
are  only  experienced  in  correlation,  that  is  as  good  as 
thinking  away  Space  and  Time.  If  they  are  mutually 
supporting,  in  the  sense  that  they  prop  each  other  up 
against  otherwise  inevitable  collapse,  are  they  trust- 
worthy elements  on  which  to  build  up  the  fabric  of  the 
world?  Once  more.  What  holds  them  together?  The 
nature  of  the  universe  that  springs  from  them  I  Or  the 
nature  of  the  mind  that  thinks  them  that  way  ?  Their 
synthesis  is  their  correlation. 

It  is  said  that  all  relations  of  Space-Time  are  times 
and  spaces.  But  this  supreme  correlation  of  objects 
and  events  in  Space-Time  is  not  spatial  or  temporal ;  it 
is  qualitative ;  it  is  out  of  Space  and  Time.  It  is  only 
to  be  conceived  sub  specie  aeternitatis.  It  can  only  sub- 
sist in  the  unity  of  a  spiritual  Being  which  is  neither 
Time  nor  Space. 

Space-Time,  empty  of  everything  but  point-instants, 
can  generate  nothing  but  more  and  more  empty  Space- 
Time  ;  not  even  that  without  some  creative  energy  be- 
hind it.  If  you  say  that  energy  presupposes  Space- 
Time,  you  can  only  mean  that  it  requires  Space-Time 
to  deploy  in  and  cannot  be  thought  of  without  it.  If  all 
energy  is  physical  energy,  then  Space-Time  will  cer- 
tainly have  to  exist  before  it  can  energise.  You  will 
have  to  conceive  of  Space-Time  as  generating  energy, 
bursting  into  energy  by  a  sort  of  spontaneous  combus- 
tion, moving  before  there  are  bodies  to  move,  generat- 
ing matter  in  motion ;  Space-Time  packed  with  all  the 
properties  and  behaviour  of  matter  in  motion,  and  flow- 
ering into  life,  into  consciousness,  into  Deity.  Deity 
that  never  is  but  always  is  to  be,  in  his  perpetual  effort 
to  overtake  himself. 

Such  a  Deity  we  have  seen  to  be  neither  immanent 


XI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       299 

nor  transcendent.  Not  immanent,  because  lie  is  not  yet, 
and  you  can  never  say  that  at  any  moment  he  is.  Not 
transcendent,  because,  belonging  to  the  future,  that  is 
to  say,  to  a  non-existent  present,  he  is  perpetually 
transcended. 

If  Space-Time  can  thus  evolve  a  universe,  why  drag 
in  Godf  And,  instead  of  dragging  him  in  at  the  end, 
since  dragged  in  he  must  be,  "to  satisfy  the  religious 
consciousness,"  why  not  drag  him  in  at  the  beginning, 
assume  that  energy  is  essentially  spiritual  and  that  God 
is  the  spiritual  being  of  Space-Time,  and  satisfy  the 
metaphysical  consciousness  as  well?  Surely,  this  as- 
sumption is  at  least  as  legitimate  as  the  other,  and  it 
gives  immanent  Deity  a  chance  to  emerge  in  life,  in 
consciousness,  in  more  and  more  perfect  manifestations 
of  itself,  while  preserving  its  inscrutable  transcendence, 
out  of  Space,  out  of  Time. 

If  I  may  adopt  Professor  Alexander's  splendid 
phrases:  The  universe  is  begotten  by  Spirit  out  of 
Space-Time.  Spirit  spreads  out  the  universe  in  its 
form  of  Space.  In  its  form  of  Time  it  sweeps  all  things 
forward  to  change  and  generation. 

Spirit  is  the  unity  of  Mind  and  Will.  Space,  as  pure 
co-existence,  expresses  its  Mind;  Time,  as  conscious- 
ness, its  Will.  Therefore  Mind  and  Will  are  as  in- 
divisible as  their  manifestation  in  Space-Time,  and  like 
Space-Time,  they  are  infinite  in  their  being.  The  di- 
vided things,  the  divided  selves,  are  finite,  and  this  is 
their  appearance,  their  existence.  Their  reality,  their 
being,  is  the  infinite  and  ultimate  Self,  which  is  God. 

ii 

In  short,  idealism  gets  on  very  happily  with  its  God 
so  long  as  it  only  thinks  of  him  as  sustaining  those  prob- 
parts  of  the  universe  which  are  unperceived  by  us.    Its  Jf^.J^' 
troubles  begin  when  it  comes  to  correlate  God's  con- Knowing 


300  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

sciousness  with  ours  and  ours  with  his,  assuming  that 
our  consciousness  and  our  will  do  make  a  difference  to 
the  universe. 

There  is  first  the  problem  of  knowledge,  and  there  is 
the  moral  problem. 

Professor  Broad  has  published  somewhere  a  very  in- 
genious theory  of  consciousness :  the  theory  of  the  neu- 
tral third  which  is  neither  mind  nor  matter.  He  sug- 
gests that  mind,  or  consciousness,  may  be  the  result  of 
the  contact  of  matter  with  this  unknown  neutral  X  and 
that  X  may  survive  the  dissolution  of  the  body  and 
be  stirred  to  fresh  consciousness  by  fresh  contacts 
with  matter.  And  there  is  no  reason  why  this  process 
should  not  be  continued  indefinitely,  so  that  X  may  be 
said  to  be  immortal. 

Substitute  an  infinite  Self,  the  ultimate  spiritual  sub- 
stratum of  matter  for  Professor  Broad's  physical  mat- 
ter, and  a  finite  self,  a  spiritual  entity,  for  his  X,  and 
let  consciousness,  the  experienced  universe,  be  the  re- 
sult of  their  contact.  The  body  will  be,  not  only  that 
part  of  the  experienced  universe  through  which  the  pas- 
sage from  infinite  to  finite  is  made,  through  which  con- 
tact is  transmitted;  it  will  be  an  insulator,  inhibiting 
the  total  discharge  of  infinite  on  finite,  ensuring  that 
not  all  the  sound,  not  all  the  light  and  colour,  not  all 
the  impact  of  the  universe  shall  beat  on  us  at  once,  but 
only  so  much  as  a  finite  spirit  can  bear.  Our  growth 
will  be  in  proportion  to  our  ability  to  take  on  more  and 
more  of  the  infinite  content  of  spirit,  to  perceive  more 
and  more,  to  create  again  within  ourselves,  increas- 
ingly, the  relations  and  correlations  of  the  universe. 
Our  progress  in  science  will  be  this  creation  of  the  uni- 
verse again  within  us. 

Realism  is  right  in  denying  the  human  subjectivity 
of  experience,  wrong  in  denying  the  spiritual  nature 
of  reality. 


XI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       301 

This  form  of  idealism  at  least  gets  over  the  diffi- 
culty of  accounting  in  terms  of  our  consciousness  for 
the  events  of  pre-human  or  pre-conscious  time.  The 
plesiosaurus  will  have  disported  himself  on  his  meso- 
zoic  beach  in  God 's  sight,  though  God  had  not  the  hap- 
py idea  of  evolving  human  minds  to  enjoy  the  spectacle 
of  him.  Before  life  was,  the  earth  will  have  whirled, 
burned,  cooled,  upheaved  and  subsided  in  the  Space- 
Time  of  God's  consciousness.  If  you  ask  what  relation 
there  can  be  between  God's  consciousness  and  all  that 
whirling,  burning,  cooling,  heaving  and  subsiding,  the 
answer  is :  Considerably  more  than  in  the  subject-ob- 
ject relation,  or  in  all  the  correlations  of  knowing  and 
the  known.  The  universe  moves  and  pulses  and  has  its 
being  in  the  energies  which  are  forms  of  God's  Will.  It 
is  the  essence  of  all  will  that  it  creates.  Even  finite 
wills  create  new  arrangements  of  given  stuff,  they  bring 
new  complexes  into  the  world.  My  act  in  writing  this 
sentence  (even  if  the  ideas  are  old)  is  a  new  act  that 
has  not  occurred  before  and  would  not  have  occurred 
without  me. 

What  idealism  has  always  needed  is  some  dynamic 
concept  corresponding  with  the  actual  behaviour  and 
relations  of  things. 

Now  the  blank,  contentless  ego  of  realism,  the  form 
of  potential  knowledge,  cannot  be  conceived  as  in  re- 
lation with  anything,  much  less  as  correlated  with  the 
universe.  There  is  nothing  for  it  to  do.  Its  acts 
of  knowing  are  not  acts  but  passive  states.  They  are 
not  even  states.  You  can  no  longer  talk  about  states 
of  consciousness. 

But  assume  that  I  have  states  of  consciousness.  So 
far  as  they  depend  upon  my  will  my  states  of  conscious- 
ness are  perpetually  bringing  new  and  very  strange 
things  into  the  universe.  It  is  all  very  well  to  say  that 
my  consciousness  is  part  of  God's  consciousness,  and 


302  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

that  I  see  all  things  in  God.  If  my  consciousness  is  a 
part  of  his  there  must  be  a  sense  in  which  God  sees 
my  things  in  me. 

In  what  way  is  my  consciousness  related  to  God's? 

There  are  at  least  four  possible  ways.  You  may  say 
that  my  consciousness  is  God's  consciousness,  that  he 
is  conscious  in  me,  and  that  is  all  there  is  in  it.  Or  you 
may  take  my  experience  twice  over,  once  as  mine  and 
once  as  God's.  Then  either  God  knows  all  the  things 
that  I  know  as  and  when  I  know  them ;  or  he  knows  them 
all,  but  knows  them  in  a  different  way. 

Or  he  does  not  know  them  at  all. 

If  our  consciousness  is  God's  as  it  stands,  once  for 
all,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  twice  over,  we  have  all  the 
difficulties  of  thorough-going  pantheism.  All  our  bad- 
ness and  our  error,  our  obscenities  and  stupidities  and 
madnesses,  flourish  as  such  in  God's  consciousness  and 
his  will.  In  us  he  will  be  incessantly  doing  bad  things, 
and  telling  the  most  awful  lies  as  well  as  knowing  about 
them. 

And  suppose  you  take  the  same  consciousness  twice 
over,  once  in  us  and  once  in  God.  Suppose  we  see  blue 
as  God  sees  it  and  because  he  sees  it ;  he  creating  what 
he  sees  and  creating  it  again  in  us,  infinite  and  finite 
seeing  together  in  two  coincident  acts.  Every  finite 
consciousness  would  see  all  it  sees  in  God  as  God  sees 
it,  each  bringing  his  own  perspective ;  and  we  should  all 
see  the  same  thing  because  it  is  God's  thing,  his  con- 
sciousness being  the  ground  of  the  identity  of  things. 
This  is  all  right  for  us,  but  how  about  God?  Equally 
he  will  see  everything  as  we  see  it.  He  will  still  not  only 
know  and  fore-know  evil ;  he  will  be  burdened  with  all 
our  futilities  and  sillinesses  and  boredoms,  the  spec- 
tator of  all  scenes  made  by  millions  and  millions  of  us — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  animals — ;  the  listener  to  millions 
and  millions  of  idiotic  conversations.    What  a  life  for  a 


XI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       303 

God !  It  is  preposterous  that  he  should  know  all  these 
things.  It  is  even  unlikely  that  he  knows,  say,  all  the 
European  languages  as  well  as  he  apparently  knows 
mathematics. 

But,  if  he  does  not  know  them,  then  I  know  something 
God  doesn't  know.  I  also  will  things  he  doesn't  will; 
and  so  far  I  have  the  advantage  of  him. 

Or  you  may  say  he  knows  our  things,  but  knows  them 
in  a  very  different  way  from  ours.  How  about  appear- 
ances? Suppose  we  know  nothing  else!  Suppose  all 
our  knowledge  is  relative  to  us,  so  that  we  never  know 
reality,  never  anything  as  it  exists  in  God's  mindf  It 
is  possible  that  the  finite  mind  may  be  creative  in  the 
sense  that  it  limits,  qualifies,  alters  or  distorts  reality. 
Possible  that  when  we  perceive  the  sensum  blue  it  is 
blue  to  us  and  an  unknown  and  unimaginable  something 
else  to  God.  And  so  on  through  all  the  primary  and 
secondary  qualities.  We  shall  have  then  two  separate 
universes  of  knowledge. 

So  I  think  we  must  reject  that  theory;  for  at  this  rate 
all  the  sensuous  splendour  of  the  universe  will  belong 
only  to  the  finite  selves.  If  ultimate  consciousness  ex- 
ists, it  must  be  aware  of  its  own  play;  it  must  know 
what  it  is  doing  to  the  finite  selves ;  if  it  does  not  see 
blue,  it  must  know  somehow  that  blue  is  seen.  It  must 
sustain  blue  in  the  universe.  And  there  will  be  no  need 
to  assume  a  divine,  unblue  counterpart  of  blue.  But 
what  the  real  relation  of  ultimate  consciousness  to  the 
sensa  is  we  cannot  tell. 

And  these  are  only  the  problems  of  God's  knowing. 

iii 

Philosophers  have  created  strange  Absolutes.    They 
have  seen  God  as  the  parish  beadle,  as  the  President  The 
of  the  Ethical  Society,  as  a  mathematician  geometriz-  ^^^ 
ing  eternally,  as  a  company  of  snow-white  categories. 


304  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

Sir  Isaac  Newton  thoughtfully  provided  him  with  the 
comfort  of  a  sensorium — all  space — much  as  he  pro- 
vided a  big  hole  in  the  door  for  his  cat  and  a  little  one 
for  her  kitten.  Other  philosophers  have  left  God  very 
poorly  off  in  this  respect. 

But  the  last  thing  they  will  allow  him  to  have  is  im- 
agination. 

Professor  Alexander's  Deity  would  be  by  far  the 
most  convincing,  if  only  he  could  contrive  to  exist. 
But,  on  the  whole,  philosophers  have  refused  to  see 
God  as  he  is :  the  wild  poetic  genius  of  eternity.  Hence 
their  utter  inability  to  account  for  sense-data,  or  any 
other  irrational  elements  of  the  cosmos.  Hence — if 
they  are  not  idealists — their  impatience  with  the  non- 
moralities,  the  contradictions  and  dilemmas,  the  happy 
little  turns  and  surprises  by  which  he  has  relieved  the 
bare  monotony  of  Space-Time.  After  all,  the  universe 
is  not  a  set  of  equations.  It  has  all  the  appearances  of 
a  romantic  adventure. 

The  best  of  Pantheism  is  that  it  does  give  back  to  God 
his  dithyrambic  and  adventurous  character,  his  un- 
dying wildness. 

Unfortunately,  pantheism  lands  us  in  the  most  hor- 
rible moral  mess.  The  identification  of  God  with  all 
the  foolishness  and  badness  in  his  universe. 

This  God  is  not  by  any  means  the  worst  God  of  all, 
since  he  is  also  identified  with  goodness ;  and  the  bad- 
ness and  the  goodness  may  be  conceived  as  cancelling 
out  somehow  in  the  Absolute.  And  they  have  no  ab- 
solute reality.  The  worst  God  of  all  is  the  God  of  the 
older  Christian  theology:  God  the  Father,  the  creator 
of  evil,  who  in  his  all-power  and  all-knowledge  delib- 
erately plans  a  cruel  universe  bristling  with  traps  for 
his  creatures.  The  older  theology  thought  of  God  as 
spending  every  moment  of  his  eternity  in  eaves-drop- 
ping and  spying  on  immoral  man,  haunting  every  bed- 


XI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       305 

room,  listening  to  every  obscene  story,  and  equally  ob- 
servant of  the  murderer  with  his  bloody  chopper  and 
the  child  with  its  fingers  in  the  jam.  Absolute  Ideal- 
ism knows  nothing  of  this  intolerable  God. 

But  the  God  of  pantheism  is  not  much  better.  So 
that  any  philosophy  which  can  do  without  God  is  happy 
inasmuch  as  it  evades  the  moral  problem.  So  long  as 
we  are  only  bits  of  Space-Time,  our  backslidings  will 
not  so  much  matter.  A  bit  of  Space-Time  bashingin  its 
wife's  head  with  the  kitchen  poker  in  a  two-pair  back; 
a  bit  of  Space-Time  coming  drunk  out  of  the  Bald- 
Faced  Stag;  a  bit  of  Space-Time  telling  an  improper 
story  at  its  club  is  not  so  shocking  to  the  religious  con- 
sciousness as  a  bit  of  God  doing  all  or  any  of  these 
things.  Somehow  a  bit  of  God  telling  that  story  seems 
the  most  incomprehensible  phenomenon  of  all. 

There  is,  however,  a  fifth  possibility.  God  may  be 
able  to  know  these  things,  but  he  may  not  choose  to 
know  them. 


IV 

First  of  all,  then,  we  shall  have  to  revise  our  ideas 
of  omniscience  and  omnipotence.  Omnipotence  wiU  be  Free 
simply  the  power  to  create,  or  to  be,  or  to  know  every-  ^^ 
thing.  It  need  not  be  exercised.  If  God  were  bound  to 
create  everything  he  could  create,  to  be  everything  he 
could  be,  to  know  everything  he  could  know,  he  would 
be  under  the  necessity  of  his  omnipotence.  He  would 
not  be  free.  Omnipotence,  then,  is  omnipotentiality, 
not  omniactuality. 

But  he  is  what  is  actual.  He  is  the  finite  selves  and 
the  universe  of  the  finite  selves.  They  are  parts  of 
God,^  their  consciousness  is  part  of  his  consciousness, 
their  bodies  are  parts  of  God 's  body  which  is  the  uni- 

^  See  Appendix  VI,  p.  319. 


306  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

verse.  He  is  everything  that  is.  But  he  is  not  bound 
to  be  anything  but  what  he  is. 

This  is  sufficient  for  pantheism. 

And  the  same  thing  will  apply  to  God's  knowledge 
and  foreknowledge.  God  could  know  everything;  but 
he  only  knows  what  he  wills  to  know.  He  need  not 
Usten  to  all  those  conversations. 

It  is  at  least  possible  that  man's  crimes  and  imbecil- 
ities and  falsehoods  are  precisely  what  God  doesn't 
know.  And  what  he  doesn't  know  he  can't  foreknow 
and  so  prevent.  And  if  he  hasn't  foreseen  evil,  then 
he  is  not  responsible  for  it.  He  doesn't  foresee,  not, 
because,  like  Professor  Alexander's  Deity,  he  doesn't 
exist,  but  because  he  happens  to  exist  in  a  different 
way.  We  cannot  have  it  both  ways,  an  infinite  God  and 
a  finite  God.  It  is  no  good  giving  God  one  set  of  at- 
tributes and  then  bestomng  on  him  another  set  utterly 
incompatible  with  the  first.  For,  if  idealism  is  true, 
God's  consciousness  is  wholly  concerned  with  reality, 
reality  being  what  exists  in  God's  consciousness;  and 
badness  and  error  are  essentially  finite  and  essentially 
unreal  The  man  in  error  and  the  bad  man  are  hallucin- 
ated. And  by  a  bad  man  I  mean  a  really  bad  man,  a 
man  who  takes  badness  for  granted  and  looks  for  it 
in  the  constitution  of  the  universe  and  not  in  his  own 
hallucinated  will. 

You  may  say  that  human  conditions  are  such  that 
he  hasn  't  a  chance.  But  human  conditions  are  the  crea- 
tions of  human  free  will.  And  free  will  is  free  will. 
Man  would  not  be  a  bit  of  God,  he  would  not  be  a  spir- 
itual entity,  if  his  will  were  not  to  some  extent  free. 
Here  again,  you  cannot  have  it  both  ways,  you  cannot 
give  man  first  one  set  of  attributes  and  then  another 
utterly  incompatible  set.  If  he  is  free  in  a  finite  world 
he  is  free  to  be  as  bad  as  he  chooses.  It  is  probably 
better  for  man  to  fight  his  way  towards  perfection 


XI  RECONSTKUCTION  OF  IDEALISM        307 

through  blood  and  sweat  and  tears,  in  freedom,  than 
to  be  tied  to  perfection  with  no  will  of  his  own;  bet- 
ter to  be  free  to  make  a  brute-beast  and  devil  of  him- 
self than  to  be  the  mil-less  slave  of  a  Deity  the  sum  of 
all  perfections. 

Not  that  we  are  bound  to  exclude  from  God 's  know- 
ledge and  foreknowledge  all  the  voluntary  works  and 
thoughts  of  man.  God's  knowledge  is  of  reality  and  of 
reality  alone.  It  is  absolute  and  perfect.  But  man  is, 
after  all,  a  spiritual  being,  born,  like  Professor  Alex- 
ander's Deity,  with  a  nisus  towards  perfection.  There 
are,  as  we  shall  see,  points — few  and  far  between,  or 
close  and  many — where  his  will  and  thought  and  pas- 
sion touch  reality.  Let  us  say  that  whenever  this  hap- 
pens God  is  conscious  of  them. 

This  is  enough  for  Absolute  Idealism. 


So  that  there  is  yet  a  sixth  alternative  and  a  seventh. 
God  may  know  some  of  our  things  and  not  others.    Or  Relation 
he  may  know  some  things  in  our  way  and  some  things  and 

in  his  own.  ultimate 

Con- 
Say  that  the  things  God  only  knows  are  realities,  and  scious- 

the  things  we  only  know,  things  relative  to  us,  are  ap-  ^®^ 

pearances;  then,  if  we  only  know  our  own  things  we 

shall  never  know  realities. 

But  we  found  that  in  our  experience  of  the  world 

of  Space  and  Time  our  personal  perspectives  could  be 

correlated  with  real  perspectives,  so  that  we  have  a 

certain  real  knowledge  of  things  in  Space-Time.    This 

knowledge  may  not  be  absolute ;  if  Professor  Einstein 

is  right  it  will  be  purely  relative,  but  it  will  be  real  as 

far  as  it  goes,  though  its  reality  will  not  be  ultimate. 

Where  our  knowledge  is  of  reality  on  whatever  level, 

we  have  literally  communion  with  God. 


308  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

And  this  is  enough  for  the  religious  consciousness. 

Is  there  any  sense,  satisfying  to  the  religious  con- 
sciousness, in  which  God  may  have  communion  with  us  f 

We  have  to  distinguish  further  between  immanent 
God  and  transcendent  Godhead.  It  is  only  God  in  his 
immanence  who  is  the  finite  selves  and  whose  body  is 
his  universe.  Only  this  God  is  the  sun  and  moon,  the 
stone  and  the  tree,  the  snake  and  the  rabbit,  the  tiger 
and  the  deer ;  the  murderer  and  the  murdered,  the  sin- 
ner and  his  sin,  the  drunkard  and  the  teller  of  the  tale. 
He  is  they,  because  without  him  they  would  not  be. 
But  in  his  universe  mere  existence  is  the  least  impor- 
tant thing.  There  is  a  scale  of  values,  and  there  are 
higher  and  lower  intensities  of  Being.  Not  ethical 
values  only — any  rejoicing  on  the  part  of  Philistines 
or  Puritans  is  premature — not  ethical  values  only,  but 
every  degree  of  perfection  of  every  kind.  Creatures 
low  on  the  scale  of  one  order  may  be  high  on  the  scale 
of  another  order.  The  lowest  qualities  in  all  orders, 
the  creatures  lowest  in  all  qualities,  exist  on  the  ex- 
treme outside  fringe  of  Being,  yet  sustained  by  its 
farthest,  thinnest  pulsation.  The  highest,  the  perfect 
qualities  and  creatures  are  those  nearest  to  the  heart  of 
God.  In  between  there  will  be  entities  living  God's  life 
in  rising  measures  of  intensity,  as  his  being  throbs 
through  them  with  a  stronger  beat. 

In  this  hierarchy  of  values  the  higher  things  will 
be  the  more  real,  because  Reality  itself  lives  in  them 
in  greater  fullness  and  richness  and  intensity,  because 
they  are  more  highly  charged. 

Now  the  intolerable  thing  that  pantheism  forced  on 
us  was  the  destruction  of  all  values  within  the  being 
of  God ;  the  identification  of  God  with  the  least  valuable 
things  in  his  universe.  There  was  a  hideous  absurdity 
in  the  idea  that  God  is  vividly  aware  of  our  criminal 


XI  RECONSTRUCTION  OF  IDEALISM       309 

lunacies  and  idiocies.  But  suppose  he  is  not  vividly- 
aware'?  Suppose  these  things  exist  on  a  level  which 
is  far  below  the  height  of  God's  transcendent  conscious- 
ness, and  that  in  this  sense  they  are  comparatively  un- 
real? Suppose  the  universe  to  be  literally  the  body 
of  God,  and  that  it  contains  our  bodies  as  its  parts, 
much  as  our  bodies  contain  their  cells  and  the  life  of 
the  cells.  Suppose  God's  mind  to  contain  our  con- 
sciousness much  as  our  minds  contain  the  memories 
and  instincts  of  the  cells.  Suppose  the  life  of  persons 
lowest  in  the  scale  of  values  to  correspond  in  God's 
consciousness  with  this  organic  cell  life  which  we  are 
hardly  conscious  of;  we  can  then  imagine  that  God  is 
not  more  conscious  of  that  pullulating  cell  life  that  we 
make  for  him  within  his  vast  organism.  Our  unspir- 
itual  states  will  be  merely  subconscious  states  of  God. 

On  the  other  hand  our  spiritual  states  will  be  literally 
part  of  God's  living  consciousness.  Our  hate  escapes 
him,  but  our  love  burns  in  him,  flame  for  flame.  Our 
spiritual  suffering  pierces  to  the  very  heart  of  God. 
He  is  joined  with  us  consciously  every  time  that  we 
know  reality,  or  create  beauty,  or  will  the  good. 

If  this  be  so,  our  spiritual  memories  will  endure  in 
God's  consciousness;  all  that  is  immortal  in  us  will 
be  remembered  there.  God  will  be  literally  our  keeper. 
If  this  be  so,  there  will  be  a  divine,  unending  process, 
the  advance  of  God's  immanent  life  to  higher  and 
higher  forms,  in  which  the  perfection  of  his  transcend- 
ent Godhead  is  manifested  in  Time.  Transcendent 
Godhead  is  what  immanent  God  will  be. 

What  is  real  for  God  is  ideal  for  us.  What  for  God 
is  foreknowledge  is  destiny  for  us.  What  for  God  is  an 
eternal  state  for  us  is  process.  We,  ourselves,  spirit- 
ual beings  in  a  spiritual  universe,  are  part  of  it.  The 
spiritual  movement  of  every  individual,  group,  society, 


310  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xi 

State,  or  nation,  is  part  of  it.  The  religious  sense  dis- 
cerns it  as  the  more  and  more  conscious  coming  to- 
gether of  God  and  man.  The  beginning  is  when  we 
know  ourselves  and  all  things  in  God;  its  end  when 
God  knows  himself  in  us. 


XII 

SUMMARY 


The  foregoing  argument  is  based  on  the  distinction 
between  Primary  and  Secondary  Consciousness.  There-  The  un- 
fore  I  might  have  been  more  in  order  if  I  had  put  Chap-  proij. 
ters  IX  and  X  first.    But  realism  was  so  formidable  an  i®™^ 
opponent  that  it  seemed  the  safer  course  to  show  from 
the  very  beginning  that  its  positions  are  not  so  impreg- 
nable as  they  look.    And  as  realism  has  taught  us  the 
fundamental  seriousness  of  Space  and  Time,  it  was  nec- 
essary to  examine  the  claims  of  unminded  Space-Time 
before  considering  mind  itself. 

We  found  certain  glaring  defects  in  the  logics  of  the 
older  idealism,  and  chiefly  in  their  attempt  to  sum  up 
the  universe  as  a  system  of  thought-relations. 

New  realism  presented  insurmountable  difficulties  in 
its  absolutism ;  its  theory  of  external  relations ;  of  con- 
sciousness without  content;  of  memory,  its  identifica- 
tion of  the  thing  remembered  with  the  thing  perceived. 

The  most  important  realist  theories  of  perception, 
Professor  Broad's  real  counterpart  and  Professor 
Whitehead's  concept  of  nature,  raised  as  many  prob- 
lems as  they  solved.  Critical  realism  betrayed  the 
first  symptoms  of  an  uneasy  consciousness,  the  first 
doubt  as  to  the  soundness  of  the  position;  but  the  in- 
genious amendments  of  Professors  Drake,  Love  joy, 
Pratt,  Rogers,  Santayana,  Sellars  and  Strong,  with 
their  apparatus  of  '' images,"  ''logical  essences,"  and 

311 


312  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xn 

"mental  states,"  added  worse  complications  of  their 
own.  So  far,  realism  proved  powerless  to  guarantee 
the  truth  of  its  assumptions  and  assurances. 

And  the  traditional  antinomies  of  unminded  Space 
and  Time  remained  as  insoluble  as  ever. 

Like  Professor  Whitehead's  event  theory,  Professor 
Alexander's  theory  of  Space-Time  failed  to  fulfil  its 
brilliant  promise  of  a  solution.  We  found  it  impos- 
sible to  reduce  quality  and  all  the  categories  to  mind- 
less Space-Time,  or  consciousness  to  compresence,  or 
mind  to  its  neural  basis ;  impossible  to  conjure  life  and 
consciousness  and  Deity  out  of  the  lifeless  and  the 
unconscious. 

ii 

Still,  the  main  objection  of  realism  to  idealism  held. 

^^Tnmaxy  Being  and  being  known  are  not  the  same.    A  line  must 

secon-     be  drawn  somewhere.    The  question  is.  Where  are  you 

ooS       going  to  draw  it? 

scious-  The  older  idealism  drew  no  line  between  conscious- 
ness and  the  object  of  consciousness,  between  knowing 
and  the  thing  known.  Its  reductio  ad  ahsurdum  is 
Solipsism.  New  realism  draws  the  line  stark  between 
the  knowing  self  and  the  whole  cosmos  of  its  knowl- 
edge, its  experience ;  only  excepting  its  acts  (knowing, 
feeling,  willing  and  so  on).  Thus  we  have  a  contra- 
diction between  the  self  as  passive  and  the  self  as 
active.  Consciousness  will  have  objects  but  no  content. 
Self -consciousness  will  have  neither  object  nor  content, 
it  will  be  a  pure  blank. 

The  new  idealism  must  draw  the  line  somewhere  else. 
Between  consciousness  and  consciousness.  Between 
primary  consciousness  and  secondary  consciousness. 
And  not  only  between  consciousness  and  consciousness, 
but  between  the  processes  and  states  of  consciousness 
and  the  processes  and  states  of  things.    Between  things 


uess 


XII  EECONSTEUCTION  OF  IDEALISM  313 
before  and  after  they  "come  into"  consciousness. 
There  is  an  order  of  cosmic  happening,  an  order  ot  cos- 
iTc  evo  ution,  which  is  not  the  order  of  our  expenenc^^ 
^f  our  consciousness  and  its  evolution ;  not  the  order  of 
our  logical  thinking,  though  when  it  is  known  our  thiiJ^- 
L  must  conform  to  it.  All  this  is  real  y  '.'objective 
to  us.  It  has  a  previous  existence,  and  is  "'depcnto 
of  our  consciousness  until  the  moment  when  it    comes 

'°tt"is*not  entirely  conditioned  by  our  consciousness, 
hy  th  mere  formal  act  of  knowing,  as  the  older  idea  ism 
supposed  Our  consciousness  is  in  a  sense  conditioned 
bvTf  rom  moment  to  moment,  inasmuch  as  it  carries  a 
context  which  extends  beyond  our  range  in  every  con- 
ceivable direction.  In  another  sense  it  ^s  conditioned 
by  our  consciousness.  All  of  it  that ' '  comes  m  "  is  part 
ol  the  cosmos  as  perceived  under  the  f  oms  of  a  fim 
consciousness  and  from  a  given  perspective  m  space 

^"so  to'from  it  being  true  that  in  this  contact  of  per- 
ception with  the  thing  perceived  tl^e  two  terms  o  the 
relation  are  preserved  in  consciousnes  ,  1*;^  P'^'^l^^^'^ 
in  this  contact  that  they  are  '"dissolubly  fused  Sepa 
ration  comes  later  in  the  supervenmg  act  of  secondary 
consciousness ;  and  it  comes  too  late. 

In  all  this  Space  and  Time  are  f  ^'''^t^'^1' ^«'\;'^ 
sential  than  the  older  idealism  allowed.  Time  and 
space  that  seem  to  divide  the  self  from  its  object  really 
urite  them  The  correlation  of  its  personal  perspective 
:^h  Ih^^'real"  Space-Time  of  God's  consciousness 
joins  up  the  finite  self  with  the  universe  and  with  God. 


Ul 


With  God,  because  there  is  no  sanity  in  the  idealism 
that  conceives  the  world  as  arising  m  fimte  and  ter-  o<^ 
tesLXnsciousness.   At  this  rate  the  great  saunans 


814  THE  NEW  IDEALISM  xn 

would  be  the  sustainers  of  the  universe  of  their  time. 

We  are  driven  to  assume  an  ultimate  consciousness 
to  sustain  the  universe  in  the  absence  of  any  other; 
to  hold  Time  and  Space  together  and  resolve  their  con- 
tradictions; to  unite  the  personal  perspectives  of  the 
finite  selves.  Here  again  the  realist  objection  held. 
We  found  that  it  is  not  enough  for  God  to  know  the 
universe ;  he  has  to  will  it  before  it  can  be.  It  is  only 
for  God,  the  Self  immanent  in  the  universe  and  tran- 
scending it,  that  being  and  knowing  are  the  same,  and 
this  only  because  God's  willing  is  itself  part  of  his 
knowing. 

Pantheism  raised  intolerable  moral  problems.  It  laid 
on  God  the  burden  of  complicity  with  our  guilt  and 
communion  with  our  imbecility.  A  possible  solution 
was  suggested  in  assuming  the  free  will  of  the  finite 
selves,  the  distinction  between  immanent  God  and  tran- 
scendent Godhead,  and  the  existence  of  a  scale  of  values 
marking  the  ascending  stages  of  God's  manifestation. 

This  solution  satisfies  the  religious  consciousness. 
For  human  progress  may  be  conceived  as  part  of  the 
manifestation.  And  ultimate  reality  is  not  something 
far  off  and  outside  us.  Nothing  can  separate  our  selves 
from  God's  self,  our  being  from  his  being.  Only  our 
minds  and  wills  are  not  always  there  with  us.  Yet  even 
they  have  not  got  to  wait  for  some  state  of  impossible 
perfection.  Every  finding  of  new  truth,  every  creation 
of  new  beauty ;  every  victory  of  goodness,  every  flash 
of  spiritual  insight  and  thrill  of  spiritual  passion,  is, 
while  it  lasts,  a  communion,  here  and  now,  with  God. 


APPENDIX 


Page  57. 
With  regard  to  the  tertiary  qualities  of  pleasure  and  pain, 
Professor  Broad  maintains  that  the  criterion  of  their  reality 
is  their  relation  to  the  will  which  seeks  to  remove  pain  and 
continue  pleasure. 

"I  suspect  that  when  a  man  says  that  he  is  immediately  certain 
that  an  unfelt  bodily  pain  cannot  exist,  what  he  means  is  that  he  is 
certain  that  this  relation  to  the  will  would  not  exist  unless  he  were 
aware  of  the  sensible  quality."  {Perception,  Physics  and  Reality: 
p.  69.) 

"This  does  not  seem  to  me  to  imply  that  the  sensible  quality  that 
is  located  in  the  tooth  when  we  do  feel  toothache  cannot  exist  unper- 
ceived.  It  would  only  then  not  affect  the  will  and  so  not  be  a  pain." 
(The  same:  p.  70.) 

Anything  rather  than  allow  that  a  sensible  quality  should 
depend  on  perception. 

II 

Pages  170  and  220. 

Time  is  one-dimensional,  successive,  irreversible  (asym- 
metrical), transitive,  in  the  relations  of  its  instants.  (If  A 
is  before  B  and  B  before  C,  A  is  before  C.  If  D  is  between 
B  and  E,  and  B  and  E  between  A  and  F,  D  is  between  A 
and  F.) 

Space  is  three-dimensional,  reversible,  symmetrical;  its  di- 
mensions are  independent,  in  the  sense  that  position  or  direc- 
tion in  the  one  need  not  involve  position  or  direction  in  the 
other;  in  fact,  movement  or  direction  uniquely  in  one  will 
exclude  movement  or  direction  uniquely  in  the  other,  though 
movements  and  directions  may  be  compounded.  (A  body  may 
move  diagonally  in  length  and  breadth,  or  in  length,  breadth 
and  height  together.) 

But  the  three  characters  of  time  are  also  independent.  That 
is  to  say,  successiveness  in  itself  is  not  irreversible;  neither 

315 


316  APPENDIX 

II  Continued 

are  transitiveness  and  betweenness  in  themselves.  If  it  de- 
pended on  relations  of  irreversibility,  succession,  or  between- 
ness alone,  time  by  itself  might  conceivably  move  backwards 
and  forwards  and  between,  and  the  total  movement  be  irre- 
versible though  containing  different  (i,  e.  reversible)  direc- 
tions. 

So  that  we  may  say  that  the  three  characters  of  Time  and 
the  three  characters  (dimensions)  of  Space,  taking  Time  and 
Space  by  themselves,  are  both  independent. 

But  between  these  independents  there  is  a  relation  of  inter- 
dependence such  that  "each  new  feature  in  Time  is  rendered 
possible  by  a  new  dimension  of  Space  and  conversely  renders 
it  possible."     (Space,  Time  and  Deity:  p.  51). 

Thus:  "a  one-dimensional  Space  would  not  suffice  to  se- 
cure" irreversibility  of  one-dimensional  Time.  For  you  will 
only  have  two  one-dimensionals,  each  in  the  same  boat.  Let 
aA  and  &B  be  two  point-instants.  Their  correspondence, 
though  it  may  fix  them  as  distinguishable  entities,  says  noth- 
ing about  their  order  and  position.  "So  far  as  the  points 
are  concerned  A  might  be  before  or  after  B  in  time."  And 
as  far  as  the  instants  are  concerned  b  might  be  before  or  after 
a  in  space. 

If  you  arrange  your  points  one-dimensionally  on  a  line 

A  B 


a  a}  a"  a^  b  V  b^  b^ 

the  as  and  the  6s  might  occupy  any  position  on  the  space  line, 
and  the  instants  A  and  B  any  position  on  the  time  line. 
There  will  be  nothing  to  distinguish  a  point  a  from  a  point 
a^,  both  covered  by  the  instant  A,  both,  that  is  to  say,  endur- 
ing in  the  same  time  A ;  but,  for  all  that  the  line  ensures  to 
the  contrary,  a^  might  be  on  the  other  side  of  b  from  a,  and 
thus  A  might  be  before  or  after  B. 

"Hence,  since  the  order  is  irreversible  it  follows  that  A 
cannot  be  repeated  in  the  one-dimensional  line  ab." 

Fig.  I  Fig.  II 

ABA  A  B 


a    b 


APPENDIX  317 

Fig.  I.  A  cannot  cover  (be  repeated  in)  a^  or  a}  because 
B  may  come  between,  throwing  a^  and  a"  at  different  dates. 
They  would  be  both  before  and  after  B,  which  is  impossible. 

Fig.  II.  But  if  you  take  A  down  into  a  second  dimension 
it  may  very  well  cover  both  a  and  a\  because  in  the  second 
dimension  a^  is  neither  before  nor  after  B ;  and  B  can  come 
on  in  its  irreversible  place. 

This  is  only  the  relation  of  besideness,  or  of  before  and 
after.  The  betweenness  of  Time  involves  a  still  further  di- 
mension of  Space. 

With  two  dimensions  only  we  might  have  the  partially 
reversible  pendulum  movement  of  Time.  But  with  C  (the 
third  time-term  that  ensures  betweenness)  planted  outside  the 
plane  a  fe  c,  B  will  fall  irreversibly  between  A  and  C. 

Similarly,  the  third  dimension  secures  uniformity  of  di- 
rection. Time  can  move  forward  in  one  line  because  the 
points  it  covers  are  removed  out  of  its  way,  so  to  speak,  into 
other  dimensions. 


Ill 

Page  247. 

I  may  see  an  event  in  Sirius  which,  from  my  point  of 
reference,  may  have  happened  nine  years  ago.  And  an  event 
in  Sirius  may  be  occurring  which  from  another  point  of  ref- 
erence is  nine  years  later  than  the  event  I  am  aware  of. 
There  is  a  point  of  reference,  therefore,  from  which  two  events 
will  be  contemporary,  though,  for  observers  on  Sirius,  they 
will  be  divided  by  eighteen  years. 

Professor  Alexander  argues  that  it  is  not  the  events  in 
Sirius  themselves  which  have  become  contemporary,  only 
that  the  points  at  which  they  occur  are  differently  dated  in 
different  perspectives. 

"In  other  words,  the  points  of  Space  are  filled  with  different 
instants  owing  to  that  re-distribution  of  instants  among  points  which 
makes  the  history  of  Space-Time."     {Space,  Time  and  Deity  :  p.  78.) 

But  surely,  if  the  events  occupy  the  points  in  question  they 
will  be  affected  by  the  redistribution.  They  cannot,  without 
forsaking  their  points,  remain  outside  it,  so  that  they,  too, 
will  be  relatively  contemporary,  or  relatively  earlier  or  later, 
according  to  the  perspective. 


318  APPENDIX 

IV 

Pages  249-250. 

Visualized  in  three-dimensional  space  the  cubes  which  are 
the  sides  of  the  tessaract  would  pass  through  each  other,  press- 
ing into  the  space  occupied  by  the  original  centre  cube. 

Similarly,  visualized  in  two-dimensional  space  only,  the 
rising  plane  squares  which  are  the  sides  of  the  cube  would 
pass  on  to  each  other,  shifted  forward  into  the  space  occupied 
by  the  original  square;  and  for  the  same  reason,  because, 
confined  to  a  lower  dimension,  we  could  not  imagine  a  higher 
visible  space  for  them  to  occupy. 

We  can  now  make  certain  deductions: 

1.  (As  we  have  just  seen)  the  movements  of  the  eight 
cubes  in  turning  at  right  angles  to  the  directions  of  their 
six  plane  sides  will  be  through  each  other  in  three-dimen- 
sional space.  That  means,  in  terms  of  three-dimensional 
space,  that  every  four-dimensional  boundary  will  fill  the  space 
bounds,  and  every  part  of  every  four-dimensional  figure  will 
displace  every  other  part.  We  must  therefore  postulate  an 
unknown  direction  (the  fourth  dimension)  for  the  construc- 
tion to  deploy  in. 

2.  Every  four-dimensional  figure  will  include  figures  of 
the  third  second  and  first  and  zero  dimensions  as  its  parts. 

Consequently  any  four-dimensional  figure  invading  three- 
dimensional  space  would  he  perceived  as  three-dimensional. 

3.  And  as  every  three-dimensional  figure  in  three-dimen- 
sional space  is  seen  hy  the  eye  as  two-dimensional  only  (in 
the  flat  on  a  Mercator's  projection),  so  by  analogy,  every 
four-dimensional  figure  will  be  seen  by  the  four-dimensional 
eye  as  three-dimensional,  in  the  round. 

4.  As  we  have  seen  that  the  boundaries  of  all  four-dimen- 
sional figures  will  be  cubes  corresponding  with  the  three- 
dimensional  planes,  so  the  four-dimensional  plane  will  corre- 
spond with  the  three-dimensional  line,  and  the  four-dimen- 
sional line  with  the  three-dimensional  zero  point,  and  the 
four-dimensional  point  with  an  unknown  position  below 
zero. 

That  is  to  say,  in  the  fourth  dimension  all  three-dimensional 
powers  will  be  raised  one  degree. 

5.  And  as  the  zero  point  is  the  unit  of  three-dimensional 
space,  an  unknown  position  below  zero  will  be  the  unit  of 
four-dimensional  space. 


APPENDIX  319 

6.  Thus,  if  we  let  analogy  rip  we  are  landed  in  sub-zero 
dimensional  space  the  units  of  which  will  be  the  boundaries 
of  points. 

7.  It  is  clear  that  the  matter  cannot  end  here.  We  are 
driven  to  a  fifth  dimension  and  to  fifth  dimensional  figures 
whose  boundaries  will  be  tessaracts,  with  sub-sub-zero  space 
at  the  other  end  of  the  scale. 

And  so  on  for  ever  and  ever. 


Page  263. 

'*The  arrangement  of  the  peripheral  nervous  system  de- 
pends on  structural  and  development  conditions ;  that  of  the 
intramedullary  level  is  essentially  functional  or  physiologi- 
cal, whilst  the  final  processes  which  underlie  sensation  are 
grouped  according  to  categories  that  can  be  discovered  by 
introspection. ' ' 

Dr.  Head  (Sensation  and  the  Cerebral  Cortex)  : 

"That  is  to  say,  when  we  reach  the  higher  levels  the  pro- 
cesses cease  to  be  physiological  and  become  psychological. 

"From  the  point  of  view  of  sensation  anatomical  repre- 
sentation ceases  as  soon  as  the  first  synaptic  junction  is 
passed"  .  .  .  "Sensation  is  a  psychical  act."     (The  same:) 

VI 

Page  305. 
When  we  talk  about  the  relation  of  the  finite  selves  to 
the  infinite  Self  we  are  at  the  mercy  of  finite  categories  which 
do  not  strictly  apply.  If  we  say  that  the  finite  selves  are 
"parts"  of  God  we  are  using  a  finite  concept  to  symbolize 
an  otherwise  inconceivable  relation.  The  relation  of  finite 
parts  to  a  finite  whole  is  such  that  if  you  remove  them  there 
won't  be  any  whole  at  all.  But  if  all  the  finite  selves  were 
removed,  the  Self  in  which  they  endured  will  still  exist  in 
itself,  though  not  as  a  whole  of  finite  selves.  The  finite  parts 
are  necessary  to  the  finite  whole.  The  infinite  Self  is  neces- 
sary to  the  finite  selves,  but  they  are  not  necessary  to  it  in 
the  sense  that  without  them  it  could  not  exist.  In  this  rela- 
tion the  Whole  transcends  its  parts.  It  is  not  only  more  than 
the  sum  of  them,  but  it  exists  in  complete  independence  be- 
yond them. 


INDEX 


Absolute:  10,  12,  15,  17,  223,  300, 
304. 

Idealism:    4,   307. 

not  Thought  only:   12. 

Self:  235. 

as  the  Whole :  242. 

Esthetic  emotions:  34  and  Foot- 
note. 
After-image:  136,  137. 
Alexander:    Professor,    Introduc- 
tion,   ix,    xii-xiv,    21,    28,    33, 
35,  142,  143. 

150,  162  et  seq.  219,  221,  223, 

234,  243,  266. 

277-288,   295,   297,   299,   312. 

Appendix  II.,  pp.  315-317. 

's  solution    of    antinomies    of 

Space  and  Time,  166. 

's  Space,    Time    and    Deity: 

162-215. 

's  view     of     Deity:     209-215, 

298,  299.  Objections  to: 
210-215.  Deity  not  exist- 
ent: 299.  Not  immanent: 
298,  299.  Not  transcend- 
ent: 299, 
Anticipation:  27,  28,  112,  246, 
248,  249,  291. 

:  Object  of,  27,  28. 

Antinomies  of  causality:  151,  152. 

of   Compact    Series:    158   et 

seq. 

:  Double-aspect  theory  of,  146, 

147. 

of  Events:   102, 

:  Kant's,  2,  18,  140,  141;  un- 
solved:  160,  161. 

Antinomies  of  serial  time:   148, 

:  Solution      of,      Alexander's, 

142-166. 

:  Solution    of,   Boodin's,    147- 

158. 

:  Solution  of,  Bergson's,  143. 

_:  Solution  of,  Bertrand  Rus- 
sell's, 18,  144. 

:  Solution      of,      Cantor-Dede- 

kind,  106,  107,  142,  144, 


Antinomies:  Solution  of,  Hegel's, 
142. 

:  Solution  of,  Montague's,  143- 

147. 

:  Solution  of,  Pragmatic,  152, 

153. 

:  Solution  of,  Whitehead's,  143 

of  Space  and  Time:  139-161. 

of     Space-Time:     165,     166, 
172,  173,  221, 

:  Zeno's,  139,  140, 

Antinomy:    The,   Professor  W,   P. 

Montague's,  143-147. 
Appearance :     Appearances :     16, 
19,  42-44,  203,  206. 

Illusory,  205,  208. 
Real,  204,  205,  206,  209. 
Reality  of,  19,  272 


:  and   Reality,    64-68,    90,   91, 

208,   209. 

Appearances:  Unreality  of, 
67,  68. 

See   Substance. 

Art:   Creative,  293. 

:  Objective,  34, 

Atomism:  Logical,  31, 
Attention:   276,  290,  292, 

:  Secondary,  290,  292. 

Attributes:   84.     See  Substance. 
Awareness:  277,  279. 

of  awareness:  277, 

"    contents:    279, 

Being:  Absolute,  3,  312. 

and  being  Known:    260,  261, 

267-273. 

and  Will:    272,  273. 

Bergson:    143,  162,  220,  296. 
Berkeley:  2,  4. 
Besideness:   145,  146. 
Betweenness  :  159,  160. 

:  Dilemma  of,  160. 

Bifurcation  Theory:  86-89. 
Biological  Proof  of  Realism:  126, 
Body  and  Mind:  260,  261, 
and  Mind:   Relation  of,  265- 

267. 


321 


322 


INDEX 


Body  and  Mind:  Eelation  of,  to 
Spirit,  300. 

and    Mind :    Relation    of,    to 

Ultimate  Consciousness,   267. 

BoODiN:  Professor  J.  E.,  Introduc- 
tion, xiii,  143,  161  (Foot- 
note), 162. 

Boodin's  Theory  of  Space-Time: 
150. 

's  Theory  of  Time:    147-158. 

's  Theory  of  Time:  Objec- 
tions to,  154-158. 

Bosanquet:   Professor,  13,  223. 

Bbadley:  Professor,  Introduction, 
xii,  13,  223,  237. 

Broad:  Professor,  C.  E.,  21  (Foot- 
note), 49-81,  162,  252,  260, 
284,  300,  311.  Appendix  I, 
p.  315. 

Professor,  C.  E.,  and  the  Eeal 

Counterpart:    49-81. 


Cantor-Dedekind  :    106,  142,   143, 

158. 
Carr:  Professor  Willdon,  243,  244. 
's  The    General    Principle    of 

Belativity :   244. 
's  Theory  of  Consciousness  as 

the  Continuimi:  243,  244. 
Categories:    2,    8,    28,    29,    179- 

194. 

's  Consciousness  and  the,  232- 

243. 
:  Logical,  a  priori,  220. 

not  non-mental:    232. 

not  reducible  to  Space-Time : 

233. 

reducible    to    consciousness: 

233-243. 

reducible      to      Space-Time: 

179  et  seq. 

:  Unminded,   270. 

Categories:    Knowledge    and    its, 

127-131. 
Causal  Theory  of  Perception:  61, 

62,  64,  65,  67. 
Causality:  151-153,  187,  240. 

:  Antinomy  of,  151,  152. 

:  Minded,  240. 

:  Time  as,  151,  152. 

as     Total     Configuration    of 

the  Universe,  240,  241. 

:  Unminded,   240. 

Cerebral    Cortex:     20,    24,    261, 

262,     287,     288.       Appendix 

IV,  p.  319. 
Chance:    Time   as,   151-155. 


Change:  96,  97,  177,  192. 

as  motion:  192. 

:  Minded,  226,  227. 

of  quality:  192,  193. 

:  Unminded,   226,    227. 

:  Events  do  not,  96,  97. 

Colour-blindness:  56,  57. 
Compact  Series:  18,  106,  142-144, 

146,  158,  159. 

:  Definition  of,  143,  158. 

:  Discreteness     in,     146, 

158,  159. 

:  Nextness  in,  158,  159. 

:  Space  and  Time  in,  142, 

143. 

— ^ (:  Objections    tol    Theory 

of,  158  et  seq. 
Compresence:  See  Consciousness. 
Concept:  228,  229. 
Concept  of  Nature:  81-114. 
Concept  of  Nature:   81-84,  91-95, 

96,  109,  111,  311. 
of  Nature :    Contradiction  in, 

109. 
of    Nature :     Inadequacy    of, 

95,  96,  111. 
of  Nature :   Inconsistency  of, 

95,  96,  111. 
Conception:  28. 
Concepts,  Primary:  230,  231. 
:  Reality  of,  28. 

Timeless  and  spaceless:  230. 

:  Vizualized,  229. 

Condition  :  342. 

Consciousness:     16,     17,     31-34, 

195-209,  279. 

a    blank    Transparency:    36, 

42,  45. 

and  the  Categories:  233-243. 

as  Compresence:   34-37,  195, 

197,  207,  231. 

as    Compresence:    232,    277, 

282,  283. 

as  Compresence  purely  spa- 
tio-temporal: 195. 

as  Compresence  not  a  unique 

relation:    195. 

:  Content      of,      31-33,      275, 

279. 

:  Content  of,  in  Critical  Real- 
ism:  132,  133. 

contentless:  35. 

as  Continuity:   227. 

as  the  Continuum:  113,  114, 

243,  244,  271. 

:  Forms  of,  246-252. 

:  E.  B.  Holt's  concept  of,  196, 

197. 


INDEX 


323 


Consciousness  and  its  object:  16, 
34,  280,  282. 

■  and  its  object,  not  distin- 
guished in  Primary  Con- 
sciousness:   280-283. 

and    its    object,    distinction 

bet-ween  an  unproved  as- 
sumption :  280-283 ;  falls 
•within  consciousness :  281 ; 
is  between  consciousness  and 
consciousness,  not  between 
consciousness  and  content : 
281. 

:Pbi*mary,   52,    236-239,    243, 

274-283,  311. 

, and    its    content :    274, 

275. 

, confused  with  Second- 
ary:  280,  283,  284. 

distinguished  from 

Secondary:  52,  274-276, 
290,  291. 

, indistinguishable    from 

content:  274-275. 

: ,  intensity   of,   275,   276. 

, invulnerable   to   realist 

attack:   294. 

: ,  Percept     and     concept 

in,   291. 

: ,  Eelation  of,  to  Sec- 
ondary:   291,   293. 

: ,will  in,  292. 

:  Secondary,     52,     231,     232, 

238,  239,  275-277,  290- 
294,  311. 

,  distinguished  from 

Primary:  52,  274-276, 
290,   291. 

, ,  distinguished   from   its 

object:   293. 

, ,  its      object       Primary 

Consciousness :    293. 

, ,  dependent   on  Primary 

Consciousness:    293. 

, ,  relation  of,  to  Pri- 
mary Consciousness, 
291-293. 

, ,  synthesis  of  with  Pri- 
mary Consciousness, 
232. 

. ,  Will  in,  292. 

:  Relation  of  to  object  of,  33, 

195,  196,  278,  280. 

:  Religious,    not    satisfied    by 

unrealised  Deity,  213, 
214. 

:  Role  of  in  Nature,  113. 

:  Space,   Time   and,   219-239. 


Consciousness:   Space  and  Time 

simplest  forms  of,  224. 
:  Space-Time     ultimate     form 

of,  222,  223. 

:  States  of,  31,  32,  33. 

:  Ultimate,  258,  259,  264-267, 

272. 

:  Ultimate,  295-310,  314. 

:  Ultimate,   Relation   of   body 

and  mind  to,  265-267. 
:  Ultimate,   Relation  to   finite 

consciousness:    303-305,   307- 

310. 

:  Unity  of,   17. 

Consciousness:   Space,  Time  and 

Other,  245-259. 
Contemplation:   35,  195,  282. 
Contingency:  242. 
Continuity:    17-18,   102-107,   142, 

143,   175,  176,  178. 
:  Consciousness   as,   227. 

in     correlated     Space-Time: 

166,  167. 

of  events:  93,  102-107. 

' '   minded  Space-Time :   225, 

226. 

of  Space-Time:  219,  220. 

''   Substance:  187. 

"  Time:  167,  168;  objec- 
tions:  168,  169. 

:  Finite  selves  give,  298. 

Continuum:  The,  18,  102-107,  243, 
244,  271,  272. 

:  The,  Professor  Broad's  the- 
ory of,  80. 

:  The,   Batio   cognoscendi  of, 

271. 

:  The,  Batio   essendi  of,  272. 

Coerelation  of  besideness  and 
succession :    145-147. 

of      personal      perspectives: 

254,   259. 

of  sight  and  touch:  71,  72. 

space-dimensions  with  time: 

169,  170.    Appendix  II,  pp. 
315-317. 

of     Space-Time:     150,    165- 

170,  297,  298. 
Cosmic  evolution:    312,  313. 
Cosmic  Evolution:  Professor  Boo- 

din's,  147. 
Cosmic  processes:  9,  268. 
Counterpart:  The  real,  61,  76,  77, 

79,  80,  81,  311. 
:  The    real,    Professor    Broad 

and,  49-81. 
Critical  Philosophy:    The,  2. 
Realism:   114-138,  311. 


324 


INDEX 


Critical  Eealism:  Affirmation  of, 

127,  128. 

:  Assumptions  of,  125. 

:  Object  and  content  in, 

129-131. 

:  Objections  to,  137,  138. 

Critical  Bealism:  The  Approach  to, 

115-119. 

:  Essays  in,  114-138. 

a7id  the  Possibility  of 

Knowledge:  122,  123. 
Critical  realists:  Introduction,  ix. 

Data:    Visual,    not    spatially    re- 
lated, 134. 
Datum:  115,  116,  132,  133,  134. 

and  the  image:    115,   116. 

:  Nature  of  the,  132-138. 

and  the  object:   133. 

not  the  object:  115-116. 

Datum:    The  Nature  of  the,  132- 

138. 
Deity:   165,  209-215,  295-299. 

begotten  by  Time  on  Space- 
Time:  209.* 

:  Concept     of,     solves     moral 

problem,   211. 
:  Infinite,   213. 

next    highest    to    conscious- 
ness: 210. 

the  nisus:  165,  210,  212,  213. 

not  existent:   210,  213. 

not  immanent:   211,  212. 

not  infinite:   212,  213. 

unknown:  210. 

unrealised:    213.     See  God. 

Descartes:  2,  3. 

Dilemma  of  compact  series:    159, 

160. 
of     consciousness     as     blank 

Transparency:  42,  45. 

of  logical  idealism:    270. 

"   realism:  76,  77. 

"   of  relations:   237-239. 

Dimension:  The  Fourth,  246,  249- 

250.      Appendix   III,   p.   318. 
Dimensions   of   Space:    169,   170. 

Appendix  II,  pp.  315-317. 
Direction:    Sense    of,    in    tactual 

perception,   73. 
Discovery:  11,  17,  31,  269. 
Discontinuity:     112,     113,     140, 

146,   158,   159. 

of  event-particles:    105,  106. 

"    Space-Time:    176. 

"    Substance:    187,  188. 

' '  unminded  Space-Time :  224. 

Discrepancies:   62,  252,  253. 


Discrepancies  of  appearances  in 
space:  42,  43. 

:  Spatial  and  temporal,  42,  43. 

Diversity:    176, 

not  reducible  to  Space-Time: 

176. 

reducible  to  terms  of  con- 
sciousness:  233,  234. 

Divisibility  of  Space,  Time  and 
matter:    140,   141. 

of  space:   167. 

Double-Aspect  Theory  of  space 
and  time:    145-147. 

Theory  of  mind:   241. 

Drake:    Professor,    116-120. 

's     Professor,     Approach     to 

Critical  Eealism:  116-120. 

Dreams:  52,  251,  252. 

Space:    251,  252. 

Time:   251,  252. 

Dualism:    2,  3. 

Duration:  102,  103. 

s:  Parallel,  103-105. 

Duree:  143. 

Ego:  16,  17. 

Ego-centric  position:  16,  17. 

Einstein:  22,  220,  240-245. 

Elan  vital:  15. 

Empirical  facts:  7. 

knowledge :   269. 

truths:   7. 

Energy:  147,  298. 
:  concept  of,  288. 

patterns:   147. 

''Enjoyment":  35,  195,  282,  283. 
Enquiry  Concerning  the  Principles 

of  Natural  Knowledge:   35, 

82  et  seq. 
Epistemological     Idealism :     236. 

See  Idealism. 
Epistemology  :  2,  5,  12. 
Essences:  Logical,  115,  116,  125, 

128-134. 

Logical,      the      data:      115, 

116. 

Logical,  distinction  between, 

and    existence    in    cognitive 
relation:    278. 

Logical,  distinction  between, 

and  existence:   116. 

Logical,  distinction  between, 

and  mental  states:  116. 

Logical,   imagined,   not  pro- 
jected:  120. 

:  Logical,  inadequacy  of,  117. 

,  Logical,  not  existents:    115- 

116. 


INDEX 


325 


Essences,  Logical,  not  in  space 
and  time:   115-116,  132-134. 

:  Logical,  Objections  to  theory 

of,  117,  119-121. 

and    reality:     121-123.      No 

guarantee  of  correspondence 
betAveen,  120,  121-123. 

,  relation  of  to  object:    117. 

:  Status  of,  116. 

Event-particles:  105,  106. 

:  Discontinuity  of,  105, 

106. 
Events:  35,  36,  82-114,  90,  91,  93, 

96,  97. 

:  Causal  character  of,  90,  91. 

:  Contradictory    character   of, 

101,  102. 
:  Covering,  106,  107. 

of  different  dates:  177,  178. 

:  Differentiation  between,  105- 

107. 

and  objects:   84,  93,  94,  97, 

98,  99. 

:  Objects  qualities  of,  98,  99. 

:  Qualitied,     172,     173,     175, 

178. 

:  Eedistribution   of,   does  not 

solve  antinomy  of  Space- 
Time,  177,  178. 

,  Belata  of  Space  and  Time: 

83. 

:  Situation  of,  90,  91. 

:  Space  and  Time  relations  be- 
tween, 83. 

— — :  Space  and  Time  abstractions 
from,  83. 

the    ultimate    elements:    82, 

98. 

:  Unoccupied,  100,  101. 

Event-theory  :  35,  82-114. 

:  Contradictions  in,  113, 

114. 

:  Objections  to,  94-114. 

Evil:  Problem  of,  303-305. 

:  God's  foreknowledge  not  of, 

306,  307,  309. 
Existence:  180. 

not  reducible  to  Space-Time: 

180. 

reducible    to    consciousness: 

234. 

:  distinction  between,  and  es- 
sence in  cognitive  relation, 
278. 

Existents:   115,  116  et  seq. 

Experience:  12. 

:  Perceptual,  44. 

:  Spatial,  44,  45. 


Extension:  106,  107. 
Extensive  Abstraction:    Method 
of,  106,  107,  138   (Note). 

Feeling:  34. 

Finite  consciousness:  309,  310. 

perspectives:  270. 

selves:  297,  299,  306,  314. 

,  parts  of  God:  306.    Ap- 
pendix V,  p.  319. 

their  appearance:   299. 

their  reality:    299. 

their  being:  299. 
Foreknowledge:  303,  306,  307. 
Free- Will:  305,  307. 

Geometrical  Constants:  255-257. 
God:  212,  213,  295-300,  312-314. 

:   Communion  with,   307,   314. 

's  consciousness :  303-305,  309, 

310. 

and  finite  selves:   306,  314. 

Unity  of,  314. 

's  foreknowledge:     303,     306, 

307. 

's  free-will:   305. 

's  knowing:  299-303,  306,  307. 

immanent:   308. 

:   minds,  organic  sensa  of,  212, 

213. 

of  pantheism:  303,  304-306, 

308,  313,  314.  See  Deity 
and  Ultimate  Conscious- 
ness. 

Green:  Professor  T.  H.,  13. 
Ground:  188. 

Hallucinations:  57,  117,  118. 

Head:  Dr.  Henry,  261,  262,  263. 
Appendix  IV,  p.  318. 

'a  Studies  in  Neurology  (Sen- 
sation and  the  Cerebral  Cor- 
tex), 261-263. 

Hegel:  Introduction,  xii,  3,  4,  13, 
142,  223. 

's Logic:  3. 

Holt:  Edwin  B.,  49,  196,  197. 

Humanism:  15. 

Hume:  2. 

Idealism  :  1  et  seq.,  293,  294. 

:  Challenge  to,  62,  260  et  seq. 

:  Crux  for,  90,  236,  261-267. 

:  Difficulties    and    objections: 

260  et  seq. 
:  Epistemological,  2,  5,  13,  269 

270,  271. 
:  Future  of,  13  et  seq. 


326 


INDEX 


Idealism:  The  New,  1  et  seq.,  13, 

219-314. 
:  The  Old,  1  et  seq. 

-  :  Problem  of,  62,  69,  70. 
:  Eeconstmction  of,  219-314. 

and  Relativity:  244,  245. 

Idealist    solution   of    problem   of 

spatial  perception:  44,  45. 

solution  of  problem  of  world 

before  consciousness:  47. 

theory  of  knowledge:    138. 

theory  of  memory :  22,  23,  48. 

theory  of  perception:  70,  71. 

theory  of  perceptual  experi- 
ence: 44,  45.  See  Personal 
Peespectives,  Space,  Time 
AND  Consciousness,  and 
Space,  Time  and  Other  Con- 
sciousnesses. 

Identity:  179. 

not  reducible  to  Space-Time: 

179,  180. 

reducible     to     consciousness : 

233,  234. 

— — of  Space  and  Time:  178. 

Image:  The,  115,  116. 

in  Critical  Eealism:   123  and 
loc.  cit. 

:  The,    and    the    datum:    115, 

116. 

:  Memory,  22,  23. 

Imagination:  26,  27,  118,  119,  291, 
292. 

source  of  character  —  com- 
plex: 118. 

:  How  veridical?:   118,  119. 

no  criterion  of  correspond- 
ence with  reality:  118. 

:  real  object  of,  26,  27. 

Incompatability:     76,    116,    117, 

119. 
of  geometrical  properties :  55, 

56. 
of  perceptions  in  one  subject: 

53,  54. 
— ' — of  perceptions  in  several  sub- 
jects: 55,  56. 
of     primary     and     secondary 

qualities  with  logical  essences: 

119. 
of  sensations  in  one  subject : 

53,  54. 

of  sight  and  touch:  72,  73. 

of  tactual  perception  and  real 

object:   72,  73. 
Inference:  291. 
Infinite:   The,  212,  213. 
regress:  237,  239. 


Instant  :  All  Space  at  an,  171-174, 

176,  189,  246. 
:  See    Compact    Series    and 

Point-instant. 
Instrumental  theory:  63,  64,  67, 

68,  71. 
Intensity:  179,  189,  239. 

of    Primary    Consciousness: 

275,  276. 

reducible      to      Space-Time: 

189. 

,  how  far  reducible  to  Space- 
Time:   239. 

Intuition:  127,  128. 

Irrational  elements,  10,  11,  268, 
269. 

James:  William,  162. 

Judgment:   31,  73-75,  291. 

involved  in  tactual  percep- 
tion: 73-75. 

is:  Mathematical,  6,  7. 

s:     synthetic    a    priori,    5,    6, 

269. 

Kant:    2,  13,  140,  141,  160,  161, 

222,  223. 
's  antinomies:  2,  140,  141,  160, 

161. 
's  schemata:  2,  222,  223,  256, 

257. 
Knowing:  16,  291. 

and  Being:  267-273. 

:  God's,  problems  of,  299-303, 

306,  307. 

an  external  relation:  268. 

:  relation  of,  16,  31,  268. 

Knovpledge:  28  et  seq. 

in  Critical  Realism:  120-123, 

127-131. 

:  God's,  306-310.    Not  of  evil: 

309. 

and  intuition,  distinction  be- 
tween in  Critical  Realism: 
127,  128. 

:  man's,  of  reality,  307. 

Knowledge    amd    its    Cateffories: 

127-131. 
Knowledge:   Critical  Eealism   and 
the  Possibility  of,  120,  123. 

Laird:     Professor,     24-28,    47-49, 

137. 

's^  Study  in  Realism:  24-28. 

— ' —  's  Theory  of  memory :    24-28, 

47-49,  137. 
Likeness:  185. 
of  appearance  to  reality,  66. 


INDEX 


327 


Likeness  of  object  to  percept:  59, 

60,  62. 
of  sensum  to  real  object:  60, 

61. 
Locke:  2,  138. 
Logic:  291. 
Logic:  See  Hegel. 
Logic  and  Mysticism:  42,  43. 
Logical  Proof  of  Eealism:  126. 

processes:   31. 

Lotze:   31,  235. 

LovEJOY:  Professor,  116,  311. 

Many:  The,  15,  242. 
Mathematical  judgments:  6,  7. 

space  and  time:  18. 

Matter:   164,  300. 

crystallisation  of  space :  164. 

Meaning:  42,  45,  198,  199. 

as  neural  process:    198,   199. 

Objections  to  theory:  198,  199. 
Meditation:  291. 
Memory:   22-28,  47,  48,  111,  112, 
246. 

image:  22,  23,  173. 

not  mental:  24. 

— ■ —  as  perception  of  external  ob- 
ject: 24,  25,  47,  48.  Objec- 
tions to  theory:  47,  48. 

and  Space-Time:   166,  167. 

:  idealist    theory    of,    23,    48, 

137,  138. 

Professor  Laird's  theory  of, 

24-28,  47. 

materialist  theory  of,  22,  23. 

realist  theory  of,  24,  47,  48. 

and  Time-series:  248,  249. 

Mental  states:  115,  116. 

states:     Distinction     between 

and  essences,  116. 

• states  existents:   116. 

states    the    sense-elements    in 

perception:  115. 
— ■ —  states,  Logical  essence  given 

by  means  of,  how?,  119. 
Mind:  85,  86,  87,  89,  95,  111,  112, 

164,  195-209,  299. 
:  Double  aspect  of,  241. 

as  change:  226,  227. 

the  form  of  Time:  201. 

a  fresh  creation:  198. 

extended:  201,  202,  207,  295. 

Objections:  202,  203. 

identified  with  neural  basis: 

197,  198,  201. 

material      and      spatio-tem- 
poral: 201. 

:  Nature  closed  to,  85,  86,  89. 


Mind:  Nature  not  closed  to,  111, 

112. 
-^:  Neural  basis  of,  197,  198. 
:  Place     of,    in    problem    of 

metaphysics,   221,   222. 

reducible  to  Space-Time,  262. 

:  Kelation  of,  to  body,  260  et 

seq.,  265-267. 

Eolation    of,    to   its    object, 

195 ;  the  same  as  the  relation 
of  any  two  finites  in  Space- 
Time,  195-196.  Objections, 
196,  197. 

:  Relation  of,  to  sense-organ, 

207,  208. 
:  Relation  of,  to  Space-Time, 

178. 
:  Space-Time  independent  of, 

178. 

as  Total  Configuration  of  the 

universe:   241. 

as  Will:  241. 

MiND-process:  295,  296, 
^— -stuff:   295,  296. 

Time:   111. 

Minded  Change:  226,  227. 

Space-Time :  225,  226. 

Mindless  motion:  271. 

Space-Time:   224,  225. 

Minds  "organic  sensa  of  God": 

212,  213. 
Modality:  242. 
Montague:   Professor  W.  P.,  49, 

143-147. 
Moore:  Dr.  A.,  30,  31,  51,  163. 
Moral  problem:  The,  303-305,  309. 
Motion  :  18,  164,  177,  190,  271. 

Molecular,  287,  288. 

Reality  of,  18. 

Relativity  of,  243-245. 

Spatio-temporal  character  of, 

190. 

:  Time  as,  164. 

Movement   in   visual   and   tactual 

perception:  73,  74. 
Multiplicity  of  reals:  62,  67,  68. 
of  real  counterparts:   79,  80, 

81. 

Naif  confusion:  The,  284. 
— ■ — realism:    See  Realism. 
Nature:  81-114. 

:  All,  at  an  instant,  105,  107. 

:  The  Concept  of,  81-114. 

Nature:   The  Concept  of,  81-114. 
Nature  closed  to  mind:  85,  86,  89. 

not  closed  to  mind:  111,  112. 

:  Passage  of,  109,  110. 


328 


INDEX 


Natube  :  Perception  in  non-mental, 
111-113. 

:  Ultimate  entities  of,  84. 

Necessity:  151-153,  242. 

and  free-will:   151-153. 

Neural  basis  of  mind:   197,  198. 

process:    201,   261,    262,    263, 

264-266,   287. 

process :  Correspondence  be- 
tween, and  sensa,  266,  267. 

— ' — process:  Correspondence  be- 
tween, and  sensation,  262,  263. 
Not  causal:  263. 

Neurology:  Studies  in,  261-263. 
Appendix  IV,  p.  318. 

NeXtness:   106,  158,  159. 

Nisus:   The,  210,  213. 

Number:   155,  156,  239,  240. 

:  Prof  essor    Boodin's    theory 

of,  155,  156. 

Object  of  anticipation :  27,  28. 

:  Consciousness   and   its,   274- 

276,  278,  282,  283.  Not  dis- 
tinguished in  Primary  Con- 
sciousness, 280,  282,  283. 

and  content:  132,  133. 

:  Contradictory    character    of, 

96,  97,   113,   114. 

:  Distinction      between,      and 

consciousness  of  object,  274- 
276.  Made  within  con- 
sciousness,  281. 

of  knowledge:  16. 

of  imagination:  26,  27. 

:  Independent  reality  of,  63. 

not  the  datum:   115,  116. 

not  distinguished  in  Primary 

Consciousness,  280,  282,  283. 

not  mental:  252. 

not  in  Space  and  Time:  84, 

87,  98. 

:  Parts  of,  97,  98. 

perceived      from      different 

positions:   55,  56. 

of  perception,   52,   121,   122. 

Independent  existence  of,  52. 

permanent:   84. 

of    Primary    Consciougfnesa : 

293. 

of  Primary  perception :  60. 

:  Eeal,  60,  96,  265.  Not  in- 
dependent of  mind,  265. 

— ' —   if   real   more   ultimate  than 

events:  96. 

:  Eelation  of,  to  events,  98,99. 

:  Relation    of,    to    mind,    195, 

196. 


Object:  Scientific,  51. 

:  Scientific  causal  character  of, 

99  et  seq. 

:  Scientific  unperceived,  284. 

:  Unperceived,  status  of,  284, 

285. 
:  Unperceived,   relation   of   to 

object  perceived,  285,  286. 

of  Secondary  Consciousness: 

293. 

of  Secondary  perception:  60. 

:  Situation  of,  91,  92,  93. 

and  subject:  40,  45. 

Objections  to  Professor  Alexan- 
der's concept  of  Deity:  210- 
215. 

to  Professor  Whitehead's  con- 
cept of  Nature:  94,  111-114. 

to  Critical  Eealism:    117-120, 

121-123,  125-128,  134,  135, 
137,  138. 

to    Double-Aspect    theory    of 

space  and  time:   146,  147. 

of  realism  apply  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  Logical  Ideal- 
ism: 293.  Not  to  Primary 
Consciousness:   294. 

to  Eealism:  37-48,  76,  80,  266, 

267. 

to  scientific  theory  of  percep- 
tion: 69-71. 

to  theory  of  categories  as  re- 
ducible to  Space-Time:  179, 
189. 

to  theory  of  compact  series: 

158  et  seq. 

to  theory  of  consciousness  as 

compresence:   196,  197. 

to  theory  of  external  rela- 
tions:  237-239,  267. 

to  theory  of   mind  identified 

with  neural  basis:  198,  199. 

to  theory  of  mind  as  extend- 
ed:  202,  203. 

to  theory  of  mind  reducible  to 

Space-Time:  202. 

to  theory  of  physiological  sub- 
jectivity:  44,  45. 

to  theory  of  real  counterpart: 

77,  79. 

to  theory  of  Space-Time  con- 
tinuity: 168-178. 

to  theory  of  Time  as  non- 
serial,  as  chance  and  causal- 
ity:   154-158. 

Omnipotence:  305,  306. 

Omnipotentiality  :  305,  306. 

Omniscience:  306. 


INDEX 


329 


Ob- 

122, 


One:  The,  15,  194,  242. 

:  The,  as  conscious  Spirit,  242. 

:  The,  as  Space-Time,  194. 

Opining:  291. 

Order:  186,  239.    How  far  reduci- 
ble to  Space-Time:  186. 
:  moral,    186. 

Pain:     19.      Not    subjective:    19. 

Appendix  I,  p.  315. 
Pantheism:     303-306,    308,    313, 
314. 

:  moral  problem  of,  303-305. 

Particular:    182,   184,   234.     See 

Universal- 
Parts  :   See  the  Whole. 
Passage  of  Nature:  109,  110. 
Percept:  122,  123,  228-230. 

laid  out  in  space:   228. 

not  perceived:   122,  123. 

jections    to    theory    of, 
123. 

in      Primary      Consciousness, 

contemplated:  291. 

in    Secondary    Consciousness, 

used:  291. 
Perception:    19,  42,  43,  85,  111- 
113,  115,  116. 

of  external  world:  20. 

:  Incompatibilities    of,    53-56. 

And    object    perceived:    68, 
252,  253. 

:  Likeness   of,   to    object,   59, 

60,  62. 

:  as  memory:  24,  25. 

within  nature:  35,  85. 

:  Object  of,  64,  65,  121,  122. 

Not  perceived:  122. 

:  Primary,  60.     See  Primary 

Consciousness. 

of    same   things:    20-22,    28, 

254-259. 
:  Secondary,  60.    See  Second- 
ary Consciousness. 

:  Tactual,  54-61,  71,  75. 

:  Tactual,       Inadequacy      of, 

74.  „ 

:  Tactual,  Incompatibilities  of , 

72,  73. 

:  Tactual  and  scientific  object: 

72    73    74. 

:  Tactual  of  three-dimensional 

shapes,  74. 

:  Tactual       Untrustworthiness 

of,  73,  75. 
Perception,   Physics   arid   Eeality: 

49-81. 
Perceptual  experience:  225,  226. 


Percipience:  85. 

Percipient  event:  85,  111,  113. 

— ■ — object:  85. 

Perry:  Ealph  Barton,  34. 

's  Ralph      Barton,      Bealistio 

Tlieory  of  Independence,  34. 
Perspectives:  21,  22. 

Finite,  252-259. 

Other  people's,  253,  254. 

Personal,   252-259,   292. 

Personal,      Correlation      of, 

254-259. 
:  Private",  21,  22,  252. 

of    Space-Time:     172,     173, 

227,  228,  252. 

of    Space-Time:     Conscious- 
ness and,  227,  228. 

Phenomenalism:  51,  58,  59. 
Physiological  subjectivity:  42-45, 

47,  203,  204. 
subjectivity:    Idealist    objec- 
tion to,  44,  45. 
Pleasure:  19. 
Pluralism  :  16,  17. 
Point  the  ideal  limit:   106,  107. 

:  All  Time  at  a,  172-174,  246. 

Points:     Immovability     of,     170, 

171. 
Point-instant:  105,  139,  140,  143, 
144,  177,  298. 

correspondence :      168, 

169. 
correspondence :     diffi- 
culty of,  169. 

:  Ideal     character      of, 

190,  191. 
Point-instants  :  Redistribution  of, 
170,     171,     174,     175, 
193,  194. 
. :  Redistribution  of,  con- 
sidered,  177,  178. 
Pratt:    Professor,   120-123. 

's  Critical    Eealism    and    the 

Possibility    of    Knowledge, 
120-123. 
Pragmatism:    15,    120,    121,    157, 

158. 
Pragmatic  criterion:  120,  121,  157, 

158. 
Premonition:  246. 
Primary  Consciousness:  274-283. 

See  Consciousness. 
Primary  and  Secondary  Qualities: 
119. 

and      Secondary      Qualities: 

Equal  status  of,  87. 

and  Secondary  Qualities  mere 

appearances:  66. 


330 


INDEX 


Primary  and  Secondary  Qualities 

not  perceived  in  real  cause: 

66. 
and  Secondary  Qualities  some 

real:  66. 
and      Secondary      Qualities: 

unreality  of,  67,  68. 
Private  space:  252. 
Problem  :  The  moral,  303-305,  308, 

309. 
Process:  241. 

and  Total   Configuration   of 

the  universe:  241. 

:  E«al,  153-158. 

:  Eeal,  prior  to  serial  position, 

154. 
Processes  of  thought:  9,  269. 
Psychic  state:  135.    See  Mental 

state. 
Pyschological  Proof  of  Eealism: 

126. 
Psycho-physical  Parallelism :  203, 

204,  264. 
PUNCTIPORM  theory:  143,  144, 

Quality:    176,    182-184,    191-195, 

242,  243. 

as  motion :  193. 

not  a  category:  176,  191,  192. 

not  reducible  to  Space-Time: 

191,  192. 
Quantity:  189. 

reducible  to  Space-Time:  189, 

239. 

Eatio  cognoscendi  and  ratio  es- 
sendi:  2,  16,  271,  272. 

cognoscendi     and     ratio     es- 

sendi :  Confusion  between, 
271. 

Eeal  counterpart:  49-81. 

object:  265. 

space :  44. 

Eealism  1-215. 

:  Assumptions  of,  269. 

:  Critical,  114-138. 

Bealism:  Approach  to  Critical,  116- 
120. 

:  Essays  in,  114-138. 

Eealism:  Crux  for,  90,  266,  267. 

:  Dilemma  of,  76,  77. 

and       distinction       between 

Primary  and  Secondary  Con- 
sciousness: 293,  294. 

and  Idealism:  293,  294. 

:  Naif,  51,  55-57,  283,  284. 

:  Naif,    confuses    mind    with 

body,  283. 


Eealism:  The  New,  1-215,  13,  15, 
16,  17,  212. 

Bealism,  The  New,  34  (Foot-note). 

Eealism:  Objections  to,  37,  38. 
See  Objections. 

:  Strength  of,  36,  37. 

Eealism:  A  Study  in,  24-28. 

:  Three  Proofs  of,  123-126. 

Eealist  theory  of  external  reality 
of  Categories:  29,  179-194. 

theory  of  memory :   24-28,  47, 

48. 

theory  of  perception :  49-138, 

312. 

theory  of  relations :  29  et  seq., 

40,  42. 

theory  of  world  before  con- 
sciousness:   45-47. 

Eealistic  Universe:  A,  148  et  seq. 

Eeality:   15,  18,  19,  307. 

of  external  world:  17,  18. 

:  God's  knowledge  of,   307. 

:  Man's  knowledge  of,  307. 

Not   directly  perceived:    75, 

76. 

of  relations:  29. 

:  Eolation  of,  to  consciousness, 

288,  289. 
:  Eelation  of,  to  its  whole,  76. 

of  space  and  time:    18,  84, 

88.    See  Space-Time.  Space 
and  Time. 

:  Spiritual  nature  of,  300. 

:  Ultimate,  314. 

:  Unperceived,  63,  89,  90,  284- 

289. 

and  Values:  308. 

Eeasoning:  291. 
Eeciprocity:  188,  189,  242. 
Eecognition:  35,  36. 
Eeflection:  290. 

Eegress:    The  infinite,   237-239. 

Eelation:  182-184. 

of  besideness:  145,  146. 

"   Knowing  to  known:  16,  31. 

■"   mind  to  sense-organ:   207, 

208. 

not  reducible  to  Space-Time: 

183,  184,  186. 

■ of  Primary  to  Secondary  con- 
sciousness: 291-293. 

of    subject    and    object:    40, 

235,  296. 

of  subject  and  predicate:  30, 

38,  39,  235. 

of  succession :   145,  146. 

of  ultimate  to  finite  conscious- 
ness:  303,  307,  310. 


INDEX 


331 


Relation  of  universal  and  partic- 
ular: 184. 
Eelations  :  Causal,  99  et  seq. 

:  external,  185,  186,  237-239. 

:  external,  do  not  relate,  37-40. 

:  external  and  internal,  30,  31. 

:  external  reality  of,  29. 

not   work   of    consciousness: 

238. 

not  work  of  thought:    29. 

:  Thought,  4,  8. 

Eelational  theory   of   space  and 

time:  143,  144,  220. 

properties:   30,  40,  41. 

Eelativity:    22    (Foot-note),   252, 

253. 
Eelativity:    General   Principle   of, 

243,  244. 
Eelativity:     Principle     of,     141. 

Note,  220,  243-245. 
to  sense-organ :  58,  59,  62,  63, 

68,  69. 

of  space  and  time :  84,  88-90. 

EOGERS:  Professor,  116,  120,  311. 
EUSSELL:  Bertrand,  17,  18,  21,  22, 

28,   37,   42,  43,  44,   143,   144, 

158  et  seq.,  162,  163,  236,  237- 

239. 

Santayana:    Professor,    116,   120, 

123-126,  311. 
Scientific  object:   72,  73,  87,  88, 

99  et  seq.,  284-286,  292,  293. 

Theory:  51,  68-71. 

SECOND-sight:  246. 

Secondary    Consciousness:    290- 

294.     See  Consciousness. 
Selection:  205,  206,  207. 
of  objects  by  mind,  not  basis 

of  idealism:  280. 
Self:  233-235,  240. 

the  highest  category,  297. 

the  highest  universal :   235. 

:  The  Infinite,  300. 

Selfhood:  233,  234,  240. 
Sellars:   Professor,  120,  127-131, 

311. 
Selves:  finite,  297,  299,  305,  306, 

309,  310. 
Sensa:    20,  21,  22,  46,  58,  59-63, 

68,  69,  261,  262,  266-269,  287- 

289. 
Sensation:  52,  53,  56,  57,  287-289. 

:  Communicability  of,  56,  57. 

:  Correspondence  between,  and 

neural  process,  261-263,  287, 
288. 

and  cerebral  cortex,  261,  262. 


Sensations:  Incompatible,  55,  56. 

SENSE-data:  42,  43,  133-136. 

data  not  in  space  and  time : 

133,  134;  yet  appearing  in 
space  and  time:  134;  and 
spatially  and  temporally  re- 
lated: 134. 

Sense-Data  and  Physics:  42,  43. 

SENSE-organ:  20,  21,  46,  58,  59-62, 
63,  68,  69,  203,  204,  207,  208, 
258. 

organ:    Dependence   of  sensa 

on,  20,  21,  46,  58,  59,  63,  68, 
69. 

organ :    Eelation  of  mind  to, 

207,  208. 

organ :  Eole  of,  in  conscious- 
ness, 258. 

Sensibles  :  20,  22,  46. 

Sensory  affections:   45. 

Sensum:  60,  61,  261,  266,  287,  288. 

:  E«lation  of,  to  molecular  mo- 
tion, 287. 

Serial  time:  See  Time. 

Series:  See  Compact. 

Simultaneity:  188,  189. 

Sirius:   Event  in,  247. 

Situation:  90-93. 

Solipsism  :  5,  16,  17,  253,  268,  272, 
312. 

Space:  162-213. 

:  Private,   252. 

:  Public,  22. 

:  Real,  difficulty  of  perceptual 

experience  in,  44. 

a      system      of      co-existent 

series:    150. 

temporal:   166,  167. 

Space  and  Time:  6,  7,  14,  18,  21, 

22,  82-84,  88-90,  312,  313. 
and   Time   abstractions   from 

events:    83. 
and   Time   abstractions  from 

Space-Time:   164. 
and  Time  all-embracing  rela- 
tions:  88. 
and     Time :     Antinomies    of, 

139-161.    See  Antinomies. 
and  Time  a  priori  forms  of 

consciousness:  296. 
and    Time:    Correlations    of, 

165-167. 
and   Time :    Identity  of,   176, 

178. 
and  Time  not  all-embracing : 

94,   95. 
and    Time    relations    between 

events:  83,  220. 


332 


INDEX 


Space  and  Time  the  ultimate  ele- 
ments: 164,  220, 
— ■ —  and   Time   ultimate   forms  of 
consciousness:   222-224. 

and  Time:  Unity  of,  166,  167, 

176,  219,  220. 
Space-Time:    162-213,  295-298. 
the  a  priori  stuff,  the 

matrix:   164. 
and  consciousness : 

253. 

Correlations    of,    166, 

167. 
-creative  form  of 

higher     consciousness : 

289. 
-    minded  and  unminded: 

224-226,   312. 

not  an  existent:  193. 

not   mental:    252. 

not      self  -  subsistent : 

298. 

—    not  substance :  194. 

not  a  unity :   194. 

not  a  whole :   193. 

as  the  One :  194. 

:  Perspectives    of,    227, 

228. 
:  Physical    and    mental, 

the  same,  295. 

:  Pure,  165. 

:  Redistribution  of,  170 

et  seq. 

and  Spirit:   299. 

— :  Stratified,  103,  104. 

subsists  in  and  through 

subject-object  relation, 

296. 
:  Supreme       correlation 

of,  298. 

:  Synthesis  of,  298. 

systems :  245. 

ultimate  form  of  con- 
sciousness: 232. 
Space,    Time    and    Consciousness: 

219-239. 
,  Time    and    Other    Conscious- 
ness:   245-259. 
SPACE,    TIME  a7id   DEITY:    28, 

162-213.     See  Time. 
SPATio-Temporal  relations:   236. 
Spinoza:  Introduction,  xii,  2. 
Spirit:  299. 
:  Relation  of  body  to,  300. 

unity  of  mind  and  will:  299. 

the  whole:  5. 

Strong:   Professor,  116,  120,  132- 
188,  311. 


Subject-Object:  40,  45,  235,  296. 

and  predicate.   See  Relation. 

Substance:  83,  124,  125,  186,  187. 

and     appearances:      124-126; 

separate  in  existence  and  iden- 
tical in  essence:  124,  125;  no 
guarantee  of  this:  125. 

and  attributes :    84. 

minded  and  unminded :   240. 

not  in  space:  84. 

and  its  parts :  140,  141,  187. 

Succession  :   106. 

:  Relation  of,  145-147. 

Synthetic  judgment  a  priori:  5, 
6. 

Tactual  Perception:  54-61,  71-75, 
80. 

Perception :   Real  counterpart 

of,  79,  80. 

Tessaract:  The,  249,  250.  Ap- 
pendix IV,  pp.  317,  318. 

Thing  and  its  Qualities:  39. 

THiNG-in-Itself :  2,  3. 

TniNGS-in-Themselves:  40. 

Thought:  4,  5,  10,  12,  29,  30,  235. 

:  Laws  of,  269. 

:  Process  of,  269. 

Relations :  4,  8,  29,  30,  235. 

Time:  87,  88,  89,  139,  140-194,  160, 
161,  173,  174. 

:  Absolute,  87,  88. 

:  All  at  a  point,  172-174,  246. 

as  causality :   151-153. 

as  chance:   151-158. 

:  Dream-,   251,   252. 

the  "mind  of  Space":  200, 

201. 

as  motion:  164. 

a  negative  property:  149. 

:  Non-serial,     93,     148,     149; 

gives    continuity    to    space; 
150. 
:  Real,  143. 

and  reality:   147-158. 

Time  and  Beality :  147-158. 

Time:  Serial,  an  intellectual  ab- 
straction, 108-110,  143,  147 
ei  seq. 

-Series:   Reversible,  246-249. 

and  Space  antithetical:   149. 

spatial:   166,  167. 

systems:   Multiplicity  of,  93. 

unreal:  143,  220.     See  Space, 

Space-Time,  Space  and  Time. 

Total  configuration  of  the  uni- 
verse :  240,  241 ;  versus  proc- 
ess: 241. 


INDEX 


333 


Touch  :  See  Tactual  perception. 
Triple  Dialectic:  3,  142. 

Ultimate  Consciousness:  272,  295- 

314. 
Consciousness:    Necessity    of, 

295-299. 
Uniformity  of  knowledge:  22, 

of  nature:  2,  242. 

Unity  of  consciousness:  17, 
of  God  and  finite  selves:  306, 

314, 
of  Space  and  Time:  166,  167, 

176,  219,  220, 
Universal:  180-182,  184,  185, 
:  The  concrete,  182, 

as  determination  of  Space- 
Time:  180,  181, 

:  The  highest,  182,   235, 

Not  reducible  to  Space- 
Time:   181-182, 

and  particular:  184, 

Universe:  295,  296. 

begotten    by    Spirit    oul^    of 

Space-Time:  299. 

and   Subject-Object:    296, 

• in     Ultimate     Consciousness : 

301.  See  Total  configuration. 

Values:   308,  314.     And  Reality: 

308. 
Vitalism:  15,  37, 

Whitehead:  Professor  A.  N.,  In- 
troduction, ix,  X,  xii-xiv,  21, 
35,  37,  81-114,  142,  162-164, 
220,  221,  295,  311, 

:  Professor  A.  N.,  and  the  con- 
cept of  Nature,  81-114. 


Whitehead:  Professor  A.  N,'8 
Concept  of  Nature:  81- 
114. 

:  Professor   A,    N,  's  Enqtiiry 

Concerning  Principles  of 
Natural  Knowledge,  81  et 
seq. 

:  Professor  A,  N,  's  solution  of 

antinomies  of  Space  and 
Time:    143   et  ante. 

Whole:  The,  76,  240,  241. 

:  The,  independent  of  percep- 
tion, 76. 

:  The,  not  a  reality,  76, 

:  The,  and  the  parts,  76,  189, 

242,  265, 

:  The,  as  Ultimate  Conscious- 
ness: 242, 

Wholes:  Logical,  242, 

Will:  The,  5,  11,  241,  272,  292, 
299. 

:  The,  in  Primary  Conscious- 
ness: 292. 

:  The,  as  pure  causality:   241. 

:  The,  in  Secondary  Conscious- 
ness: 292. 

The,  above  Space-Time,  241, 

:  Free,  305,  307. 

Wilxjng:  34. 

and  Being:  272, 

Wolf:  2. 

World  before  Consciousness:  45, 
46,  47,  267,  301,  313,  314,_ 

before    Consciousness:     DifS- 

culty  in  realist  theory  of,  47. 

before  Consciousness :  Idealist 

theory  of,  46,  47. 

Zeno:   139,  140, 


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